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I can only speak for the R80 process as that's what I was doing but my ghetto method which sounds very similar to yours was not at all what the manual prescribed! The R80 front wheel bearings are a bit unusual though as they're tapered bearings, still never expected it to work the way it does. Basically guessing if you don't know how they're supposed to be set up.
I've found they tend to fail on the right side as the bike leans to the left on the side stand and that allows water to collect around the seal, but it all seems secondary to proper setup.
Airhead-
Tapered bearings would be a lot more susceptible to the wrong loading I guess, these are just run of the mill sealed ball 6203 series jobs, they won't take kindly to lateral loading so a bit odd that most modern motorbikes seem to use this style of bearing. Bicycles (which will experience less load) usually have loose ball which is going to be cup + cone, some sealed ball bearing, and fancier stuff like King and Royce use tapered bearings of some sort.
BrickMan
Maybe this! I don't have a copy of the proper manual do have been using my built in wrist torque wrench on the axle (works a bit like a manitou 20mm bolt through where you load the bearings on the axle, then tighten the clamp with 4 bolts afterwards).
So today replaced the front wheel bearings, one was fine, the other was mullered, judging by the brown ooze I'm calling seal failure, or I've over pre loaded the bearings causing the seal to be doing no good, then dirt, then fail.
Interestingly put it all back together, and if you grab front wheel by 12 and 6 position can still get a very slight but defo there movement, at the edge of the tyre (19" rim) it's maybe 3mm. Wonder if the axle itself is the wrong one as there is tiny difference in inner bearing diameter vs od of the shaft (not wear, it's uniform along its length). It's going to be in the 0.1-0.3mm range