Anecdotal evidence, but I think still worth the mention...
At my Echo Dealership, the Service Manager showed me a top end that had, what to me, seemed like an odd colour. I asked about it, and he said.. " It's from wood dust getting past the filter.: There was an odd "burnished" look.. a kind of light brown / tan colouration that I'd not seen before, I asked if that was why the saw was in pieces on the bench, and he said no.. The wood ingested, is burned up during normal combustion, and just resulted in some discolouration. Sawdust isn't capable of scratching metal in small quantities. Remember, the fines would be sucked into the combustion area, and burnt immediately to ash. Fines or ash, even if a very, very small percentage of them got stuck between the piston and the sleeve, would have minimal effect or consequences to the saw. They simply deposit, what is probably basically creosote on the piston dome, and on the top of the combustion chamber. That was the discolouration that let them know that the filter was letting stuff get through. That, and the presence of fines where they shouldn't have been in the induction area of the saw.
Are fines good for a saw? Uhhhh... no!! Do they cause catastrophic failure? I sincerely doubt it.