When it comes to brand-new hubs or wheels withg cup/cone bearings, I find it odd that they are NEVER adjusted properly at the factory.
These bearings are always adjusted at the factory with snug bearing pre-load, when what is needed is a finite amount of freeplay that should only fully go away when the full tension of the quick-release skewer is applied. Using a much lighter setting on the quick release adjusting nut should leave the wheel with some freeplay discernable at the rim.

I suspect that the average rider would be shocked to know how much resistance and roughness can be felt at the axle when the bearings are left in the factory-adjusted condition. Using a pair of loose dropouts or thick washers to simulate clamping the wheel into a frame will show the rider how tight and rough that the hand-turned axle's rotation becomes when the quick-release lever is secured, and makes it pretty clear how damaging that this is to the axle bearings, most especially the cones. The balls are typically chromium steel and the cup races have so much more surface area than the cone races, so the cones lose their case hardening first, just like a secondary asphalt roadway breaks up from being heavily used by heavy big-rig trucks.
One should never expect such over-tightened bearings to break in without damage. The best hubs tolerate this abuse for what is really an incredibly long time considering the extreme-pressure loading of the cone races, but it does shorten their lifespan greatly since they are being overloaded by huge factors (versus use with proper adjustment).

Bottom brackets and even solid/nutted (non-quick-release) hub axles should have some preload that is felt as turning resistance well beyond that imposed by even the heaviest of greases. There needs to be some pre-load since the bearing balls and races will compress locally under even the smallest force just like a spring does, and we don't want freeplay to occur under ordinary loading.

Headsets are another matter because the steer tube shortens in response to the expansion of the quill (according to Poisson's Ratio), which tightens the bearing preload adjustment quite measurably, sometimes leading to immediate damage during a first post-adjustment ride!
As well, the fork crown rocks due to steer tube flex in response to loading and road shock, which has a "pinching" effect on the bearings toward the front of the upper and lower headset and thus compresses the bearings toward the front of the headset with great leverage as the front of the steer tube shortens while the rear of the steer tube lengthens.
So the headset must not be overtight, at all, making headset adjustment the most sensitive of all the bike's bearings, and final adjustment for free movement should thus always be carefully checked with a quill tightened in place in the steer tube.