Originally Posted by
garage sale GT
I'd say a headset cup or cone is more likely to be loaded across its entire face.
You can say that. It won't make it true. The point of preloading an angular contact bearing is it keeps the bearing loaded at all points on the rotation. Pitting on a spindle is going to be the result of corrosion, which is going to have a lot more to do with how it was stored than how the cranks were mounted, or contamination, which will attack the whole race.