The difference between reformatting and installing the OS and software compared with replacing 2 bearings is about a day of work , 2 bearings with the standard maintenance is just 1 minute extra work on the normal clutch maintenance...
Your 10 dollar bearings means 40 of my cheap bearings, do you realy think a 10 dollar bearing will last that long? Once I had a Boca ceramic set for my MRX4, the clutch bearings did last as long as steel so for me no ceramics on that place. Yes, in the rest of the car they did last long!
In the far past I made an RPM sensor on my Serpent Excel, the cluch did engage at 22.000 rpm, today's clutches do engage higher, maybe not at 30.000 but sure at 25.000

The clutch actually engages after every corner, depending the track that can be once every 2 secconds (average), so you see the clutch has to work hard time when racing 3 heats of 8 minutes (inc warm up) and 2 finals of an half hour on a sunday. I also think we produce more heat in the clutch which is killing for the lubrication of the bearings. Once I had rubber shielded bearings but I think it was more like a plastic, the shielding was melted away.
The thrust bearing is the one that fails too soon and will ruin the race, for sure if you leave too much endplay on the clutch bell, a thrust washer is the most reliable option and are cheap.