We need to keep in mind that the efficiency of a filter has nothing to do with occurence of contamination.
Read that again, carefully, and pick your jaw up off the floor. Do NOT flame me just yet; I beg of you to resist hitting the reply button and read on.
There is a difference between occurence rates of contamination and the ability of a filter to catch particulate.
Really efficient filters are "better" at reducing contamination moreso than a moderate filter; we'd all agree.
But that efficiency of the filter does NOT speak to how much contamination is present upstream in the system as a whole.
It's a math game ... it's about OCCURENCE versus REMOVAL.
Filters do NOTHING to induce or promote contamination; they only remove it. So they can do nothing but act upon what may or may not be present. They cannot generate it.
99.0% of 1000 particles is 990 particles caught and 10 particles passed.
95.0% of 100 particles is 95 particles caught and only 5 passed.
The more efficient filter passed more particles, because the overall level on contamination was greater in the first example.
Yes - for any given system, the higher eff filter would remove more. But if your system has very little contamination to begin with, then the overal total magnitude of contamination will be low REGARDLESS of which filter you choose. This is why I believe that using premium filters never really manifests into shifts in wear data in UOAs. Today's engines run so clean, and are sealed up well, and with excellent lubes, there just is very little contamination present in the first place.
Contamination comes from three general sources:
1) ingestion via the air tract
2) generation from soot loading
3) component contact
In the first concern, as long as your air filter ALSO does not have a tear in it, this really won't change much of anything relative to the rate that dirt ingested into the oil.
In the second concern, soot starts out sub-micron in size, and the anti-agglomerates help keep it small. A typical full flow filter would hopefully never, ever see a soot-ball so large that it could actually be caught with any regularity; if your soot is co-joining this big, then you're WAY past the sensible OCI range in the first place. As long as soot stays 5um and smaller, it's really not of much consequence. This is why oil can look really dark (nearly coal black) and yet you get no appreciable wear, even as the miles pack on. As long as the add-pack is not overwhelmed, the soot in being controlled not by the filter, but by the oil! And engines are so effeicient now, that soot production (which is a byproduct of incomplete hydrocarbon combustion) is very small contrasted to cars of yester-year. I'm not saying it does not exist; I'm saying it's in lower quantites and smaller sizes than ever before.
In the third concern, the tribochemical barrier prevents this. Now, go back to what I preach about the tribochemical barrier; it's generally fully developed at 3k miles and wear is practically nothing by then.
And since we have no idea WHEN the tear occurs (during manufacture, during installation, after installtion, after 10 minutes of use, after 1k miles, after 5k miles .....) then we'll NEVER know just how much wear may or may not occur during the onset of the OCI. And since we know wear DOES naturally escalate at the front end of an OCI because the TB barrier is removed due to the detergents, then how in the world does one expect to see tiny evidence of wear subsequent to a tear anyway??????
I get it; we all want a perfect system. But the overall quality of lubes and engines has made the filter a bit more of a back-seat player in the regard. It's important, to be sure, but it's not a all-or-nothing event we're talking about here.
Is torn media desirable? Absolutely not.
Is torn media an assurance of grossly escalated engine wear? Probably not.
I'm of the opinon that the air filter has MUCH more to do with wear as far as ingestion can have effect. A torn air filter (or a sloppy install job) would be of more concern to me than a torn oil filter.