The OP brings up a design aspect that I shake my head over. His small balls... in his headset. It's been my understanding for a few decades that the load capacity of a ball bearing increases geometrically to it's diameter but only linearly with the number of balls. So this headset with less then 5/32" balls likely uses 1/8" ones. This is about as tiny as one sees in the bike bearing world (excepting some thrust situations). This tiny a ball will pit, wear, and roll rough sooner then larger ones. It will tend to dent the cone or cup sooner (debate about denting VS fretting aside). It's only advantage is to allow a lower stack height or tighter fits between the head tube's ID and the steerer's OD. (Yet the common applications of 1/8" balled headsets that I've serviced don't seem to take advantage of these possible benefits). I've seen a lot of 1/8" balled headsets still roll rough with new proper sized balls (both w/ and w/out the retainer retained). I also feel that the small balls make for a touchier adjustment. Andy.