On a long pattern, if you are skidding past the breakpoint, you are playing the wrong part of the lane anyway. EX: If you are on a 45 foot pattern and trying to play 7-8 breakpoint, have fun with all the 2-8-10s you are about to see, provided you even hit the headpin. The only real way to tell if your ball is skidding too far or burning up, is you have to hit the pocket and see how the ball "hits". If the ball is skidding too far, then the ball will still hit with some life on it. If it is burning up, then a 15 pound ball will most likely hit the pins in the same manner a 12 pounder would.
Another thing....is the difference between 800 and say even 2000 with polish is a pretty substantial jump. Just adding polish to 2000 now turns the cover more into a 5000-5500 grit surface. 800 to 5000 is HUGE!!! Thats why whenever most of us say to add some surface, most likely its just taking the underlying surface under the polish and putting the surface to that number. EX: If a ball is 2000 plus polish, then "adding surface" would start at 2000, but no polish. There are bowlers that think that adding surface means to go to 500-800 grit. In most cases, you wont have to go anything less than 1000 grit and that is if they are pretty oily. Optimum for most conditions may be 2000-3000. That will give the ball some teeth and yet not so much that it burns out all the energy before it gets to the backend.
