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Well no and no.
You build up tension between your 2 headset bearings to counter flexing at the crown race. Longer head tubes have better leverage on the "pivot" of your crown race. (Sorry my English is not up to scratch for these explanations).
And if we're talking about a 40mm stack of spacers your toptube will shorten by 0,6658mm.....
If we're not going for looks, just get out your positive 35 degree stem.
Jaap-
Get your point. But surely the flex from your wheel and tyres absorbs most of the day to day riding stress loads placed on the headset bearings. Unless you brake extremely hard on the front wheel in a straight line forcing the forks to deflect backwards. I've never in my many years of riding had to replace a worn headset, that wasn't due to dirt/water ingress, maybe I'm just have a very graceful riding style.
I know that the further apart the bearings are the better any load is shared, but I've always been short and therefore had relatively short headtubes without any problems.
jontea
Not really, a longer headtube would have the same impact on handling, obviously the higher you go the shorter the effective tt becomes (due to headtube angle). It's not like your putting extreme forces through the headset bearings, the limiting factor is the steerer material, you wouldn't want Surly fitting full carbon forks and then bung a shitload of spacers on there.