Same conditions as 5 years ago. "wearing in" was not the issue. They are just wearing out.
I don't think they are pressurized.

I have adj QA1 shocks on the rear, and while they are valve 'heavier' because I'm still in the low-range of their setting, I'm not noticing any or much wear on those.

Have a compleet set of double adjustable Viking shocks coming my way in 2-3 weeks, so I can open up the Hotchkis shocks and have a look at why they seem to be losing their effectiveness.