Any ball finished at 4000 is going to polish up to the lane quite a bit.  I have certainly had my share of balls die, although it usually happens more quickly with solids which rely more on a combination of abrasiveness, and chemical friction to get a ball reaction.  In addition, some balls actually perform better after they polish up, depending on your style.  Original Virtual Gravity was that way for me, and Lucid is too.  They will certainly still die at some point, but the intial taming down is not necessarily detrimental depending on your style.  Balls that really lost their reaction quickly and badly were the original Cell, and the first solid Theory.  I also was told the Vivid was bad that way.