running lean and engine damage

Running lean is not always a bad thing, just depends on how lean. Years ago I tuned a sport bike I had. Tuned it on the lean side. Tortured that bike for 90k miles set up like that, and never had an issue. I lived in AZ. Bike never overheated, nor did it suffer any type of damage. It was dynoed before I tuned it, made 86 hp. After the tune and new exhaust were put on hit 98 hp. 75k miles later was ran on a dyno one more time, still made 98 hp. Both times it was ran on the dyno after tuning the operators made a comment of it being lean but very strong for a 600cc motor. Bike was lean enough that it popped constantly on deceleration.