If you've read my posts you'll see that I did not propose any means of failure. I merely commented on the fact that I, along with a number of other people on this thread, have not suffered problems with 1" steerers, despite collectively speaking, decades of use and many, many thousands of miles.
This reminds me of discussions I see on some photography forums. I am a professional photographer but on these forums I see a great many posts by people who possess great technical knowledge and are obsessed by resolution charts and the minutiae of sensor technology. They lose sight of the fact that for the overwhelming number of photographers, pros included, a camera is a tool and that the practice of photography in the real world is far more than resolution charts or pixel size. Yes a given sensor or lens might outperform another in a lab or resolve a level of detail that will never be visible anyway even on a double page spread in a high quality magazine, but what of it?
To these technology obsessed types it is technology itself that is the end-all and that is fair enough - for them. But to read their dismissals of what in truth are excellent cameras or lenses you would think they were describing Box Brownies, and that no photograph taken before, say, 2010, could possibly have the clarity or colour rendition or resolution to be worth the paper to print it.
I prefer to step back - look at the forest.
People got along fine with 1" steerers for many years.