I have never experienced ball death as it's defined in this post. I have jhad some bowling balls lose alot of there OOB reaction after X-number of games but never seen a ball just totally puke. However, I also don't keep bowling balls very long to put a ton of games on them.
I usually just buy a new arsenal every year. My pro shop guy gives me in store credit for trading in equipment. So it works out pretty good for me to just trade old equipment in every year.