Not going to argue about Campy right now, but honestly, have you tried to buy a needle-bearing A9? There are new Stronglight headsets called A9, but today precious little new product has needle bearings. I've seen two versions: ball bearing and cartridge bearing. No information presented by Stronglight about the nature of the cartridge bearings, so I assume they've cheaped out and are offerring some ball-type cartridge bearing.

I'd love to be proven wrong.

Campy headsets, back to the Record days, will last a really long time (decades of time and 100's of thousands of miles) with maintenance, as will any other well-designed and well-made bearing. They were not designed for press and forget use, being soaked in grit, or lubricated in salt. Heavy rain can wash out grease or the oil that grease carries. The same can be said for Tange, Ritchey, Origin8, and any cheap crap headset you buy, as well as of many so-called sealed headsets. If you really want to treat headsets like disposable parts, fine, you have no business worrying about Campy. And especially you have no business complaining about it if you can't manage such basic maintenance.

You should probably get a Shimano STX or something that has easily replaced cartridges. Or the current Stronglight headset-like object they now call an A9.