Ive never seen a tensioner who's nylon pad was worn out with a silent chain. Barely a scuff as the silent rolls across on a wide wedge of oil. It has a much larger footprint on the tensioner block than a double roller with its 3 spines. If you see one thats wasted, there was no oil in there to start. Seen more valve seals in oil pans that anything else. .100 of variation off TDC on an 8" balancer (assuming you were dead nuts on with a new chain) is 1.432 degrees of retard over maybe 50K on a cam that may not have even been degreed during install. Thats a shift of the power band to the higher RPMs with a hit on low end torque. But the tensioner does more for erratic spark events. It just keeps a dead solid distributor signal. sure youll lose low end over time but like you said, they both will do that but the tensioned one will not lose stable distributor timing. Silent Timing chains (even some rollers) are cheap, about as much as a set of head gaskets. May as well change it out whenever you get in there for anything as most (almost all) of any design is going to wear out over time. Where does anything go that deteriorates inside the motor...the oil filter.