Today I ordered a complete set of wheel bearings from Vxb.com for front and rear. On the Final Drive set I ordered the ten pack. I talked the folks at Vxb and they said that they source these bearings from Japan and/or Germany.
I'm only guessing here but based on the burn't grease at 11,800 miles in my Final Drive Flange bearings I would think the issue is heat and not load. I know that load can cause a heat issue, but that would probably happen sooner than 11,800 miles. If load were the issue wouldn't these bearings only last 1-2,000 miles before failure and wouldn't they both be toast and not only one of the two?
I'm not a bearing expert but I would think it gets incredibly hot in the Spline where these two bearings are located.
It could also be a manufacturing/assembly line issue at the Honda factory. Maybe the bearings were not initially pressed in correctly on a few ST's since only a handful of ST Owners on this site are having this problem. Maybe a new set of bearings correctly inserted could last 80,000+ miles. Don't know.