That thought did cross my mind after reading other disastrous threads on this forum but I can confirm that I was running my motor on a fully synthetic oil with no additives and I can also confirm that I will never be doing that again LOL! There are thousands of engines on the road today quite happily running flat tappets so I am fighting the paranoia and will try another flat tappet cam.
I think that's a wise decision. I've never recommended synthetic oil for a flat tappet. My reasoning is that synthetics flow so well, that they can actually lose or make the oil film so thin that it compromises the part. I can give first hand proof just how much better synthetics flow than standard carbon oils. I've run synthetic myself in the past. On a 360 with around 25K miles, i made the switch. The oil flowed so well that i developed a rear main seal leak. i switched back to carbon oil and it disappeared. Maybe the seal was weak, i don't know....but i do know it leaked with synthetic and not with carbon based oil. I've also seen similar instances from othere, so there must be something to it.