I'm a firm believer that many "cam" failures are actually caused by bad break-in techniques. I've had good luck using Brad Penn break-in oil and the old GM EOS or equivalent Zinc additives. One thing I do RELIGIOUSLY is once I shut the engine off on the initial break-in - I do not restart it until it cools fully. IMO this helps "temper" the cam lobes. Personally I think too many first starts are "media events" with a half dozen buddies, too much beer, and the hot engine gets restarted every 20 minutes like a Chuckie Cheese show.

I had a hydraulic cam that kept on having lifter bleed down issues. I tossed a new set of mechanical lifters in it, ran it through another break-in, and ran it for about 25K miles before we hurt it with a bad NOS fuel solenoid. Yeah, I know - different ramps, will never work - whatever.