Fiction...

Rather than me blathering, here's a link to what Sheldon wrote on the subject:
http://sheldonbrown.com/synchain.html#chainring

Note that most folks who have even numbered timing rings DON'T mark their sync chains and chainrings so that they put the chains back on after removing them (for various reasons) in the same orientation that yields the possible longer life mentioned in Sheldon's article. About the only thing someone will notice if they do this after there has been significant wear on the sync chain and timing rings will be a subtle grinding sound from the slightly mismatched pitch of the chain links and timing ring that will go away after a short time as the parts re-seat.