Suspension damping can change its characteristics overtime. With clean records I have seen styli last over 3000 hours. The only failures I have seen were due to failure of the coil wires at the solder joints. Copper will work harden so vibration at this joint eventually causes failure, This is the one big advantage of gold coils. They will never do this. I had a Sumiko Cartridge fail this way, a Talisman S. If it plays, tracks and sounds good to you it is probably OK.
