The rockers I've measured are a little bit egg shaped, but it seems that they don't wear nearly as much as the shafts. I've seen the same kind of problems elsewhere- - - -a soft surface running against a hard one, and the hardened area gets most of the wear for some reason. I think you're on the right track with the "oil starvation" idea. Cast iron with a high nickel content in the alloy seems to be very wear-resistant. Look at the wear on an engine's cylinders between different makes- - - -Chevy (and GM engines in general) got much more cylinder wear than Ford back in the 1950s. Ford put a lot of nickel in their cast iron alloys, and Hudson engines with the very high nickel content in their blocks could get two or three re-ring jobs before needing to be rebored.
Jerry
