headers - ferrari and aftermarket for 360 (430 and 355 please share too)

what was initially just a throw away statement from a very knowledgeable F car tech regarding watching for cracked headers has sort of continued to gnaw away at me until reading the posts recently on the subject made me decide to stop and devote some actual thinking to it and whether i should be doing anything about it as preventative work
it seems that theres no doubt that the headers are a weak spot, that there seems to be damage created as a result beyond the actual header needing replaced itself is less than comforting no matter how rare the occurrence.
the question for me is what is going on and should i be looking to sidestep this is advance. everything i read seems to be vague or foggy and doesnt seem to offer anything practical. what the reasons are for this i dont know, maybe its just my interpretation of the information thats the problem and everyone else is moving along just fine. if thats the case i'll apologise in advance and hope those with practical info can indulge me

what are the sources of engine issues resulting from running cracked headers beyond the obvious performance ones that apply to any vehicle. theres seems to be two problems alluded to, one being ingestion of heat insulating material into the engine and the other being ingestion of structural materials from the precats.
do i have this correct?
if so then am i correct in thinking that the ingestion of the insulating material through the crack is the only one directly relating to cracked headers. the ingestion of precat material is due to degradation of the precat internals and therefor unrelated to header cracks specifically. that both can be attributed to some combination of inferior workmanship,material, age, heat etc and thus the same root cause seems reasonable, that replacing headers cures both is also reasonable but they are still different issues as far as i can see even though relating to the same part.

that either may happen however is enough to make me think hard about an alternative header source as an investment in my car and not just a performance upgrade. i wouldnt skip a service so why would i not address this. sadly there doesnt seem to be much info on what people have done to avoid this, as a result of having it happen or through a simple quest for better performance or sound.
the threads on this all seem to suggest that people have just taken new headers from ferrari, headers that havent been redesigned or re-engineered. warranty coverage may explain this but what is there for others looking beyond this.

looking at the parts diagrams seems to yield little on the OEM front. for the 360 all US models incl the CS have the same exhaust system headers and cats from 2000 onwards so no obvious option there. the challenge has a different exhaust system which may provide an alternative though how compatible this is isnt clear and futhermore if its the same manufacturer, is this isolated from cracking incidents either? is this problem only relating to earlier cars, all models or those from 2000 onwards. might a change to a later manifold for earlier cars, or an earlier manifold for later cars solve anything?

the obvious solution to any potential headaches seems to lie with aftermarket headers. what options are there for this then if this is the case. ive had good experience with fabspeed with my porsche but have no idea how they perform on the ferrari. tubi and capristo are also alternatives but do they offer headers?
does anyone have any experience using aftermarket headers on their car both with regards to fitment and long term use.

one point that springs to mind with aftermarket stainless headers is controlling heat from them. the OEM ones are heat protected and aftermarket ones are not. how critical is this? do i need to then look into applying some sort of heat protection to any header i purchase and fit. if so then where does this leave me. heat wrap has obvious shortcomings, a ceramic coating would seem the better choice but how is this in terms of specifics to this application.

it seems that im left with more questions that answers on this topic and would really appreciate hearing what others have opted for or what their research has yielded.
at the moment i really want to yank those headers out and fit stainless ones but without knowing more on them im left with a better the devil you know dilemma.