Well thanks to all for your interest. I have received an answer from Zipp. Someone there decided to pay attention after I told him there was an "avid discussion" on weightweenies. OK, minor exaggeration, but given the context, I think that can be forgiven.
We use grade 3. ABEC 5, grade 3 ball. I believe the notion of the grade 2 bearings originated from our Zedtech bearing vendor. Since this program is no longer available, we will make sure this information is removed during the next website update.
Best,
ZIPP
Zipp Speed Weaponry
That would explain why they say that CeramicSpeed (ball grade 3, ABEC7) is an upgrade.
Ultimately, what people are saying "who cares" "if you are chasing anything more than grade 5 you are kidding yourself" and "there's no difference between Grade 3 and 2 and 5 and... etc" are all valid points. From what I have read, there is no significant benefit from bearings even beyond Grade 25. At that point, ball resistance is vastly overshadowed by seal resistance, which itself is negligible. Claims to the contrary like (a good set of bearings will save you 1-9 Watts) are contradicted by many posts found even on this very site, where engineers have pointed out that the energy savings is likely to be <0.01%, so a tiny fraction of a Watt. Certainly, if the resistance from the seal can be overcome with a tiny fraction of a watt, then it's not really plausible that removing that resistance can save thousands of times more energy. If I put a wheel on its side (eliminate balance problems), I can move a steel bearing wheel with Grade 25 balls by blowing gently on it...
The real issue I have with this is the fact that for who knows how long, Zipp has been claiming to use a product that is better than the competition, but this product doesn't actually exist. So competitors have no choice but to use "inferior" grade product, which is actually the best product available, or lie.
Is the cause of this error deception or misinformation - I don't think anyone can say that and it would take a whistleblower at Zipp to say for sure that there was a specific chain of motive behind this behavior.
But make no mistake, there's a difference between saying "our wheels are faster" and "we use Grade 2 balls". Generally, the first type of statement isn't a big problem. It's when a company starts to make a claim that is specific like the second that they become legally punishable. If you make a drink that you say "contains electrolytes", that's a pretty broad claim. If you make a drink that contains "150mg Guarana per 250mL serving size", then that is a specific claim and does need to be accurate. If it is not, that's called "false advertising" and even a rudimentary knowledge of world events will tell you that this is taken very seriously and can be extremely expensive. Even if there are no specific damages and the type of lawsuit brought against the company is criminal rather than civil. Look at what happened with Red Bull a couple of years ago. Heck, look at VW. It is the act of being deceptive that is considered unlawful - and it becomes very expensive. Many would argue that VW cars are actually cleaner running than most US made cars and that the damage done is very little, but the key point is not the details of how well they run, it's the fact that they were deceptive about specific details.
Certainly, if I were a lawyer working for a competitor for Zipp, it wouldn't be hard to demonstrate damages. If Zipp bases their high sales volume and high markup on falsified information and as a result becomes a market leader, yeah, that's pretty easily demonstrable legally inappropriate behavior that is not OK. Other companies have been sued for far less. I don't think anything like that will happen because the bicycle industry is so small and now that Zipp is owned by SRAM, it's not really in anyone's best interests to sue them.
But I am glad that we did find some real information. I'm glad that Zipp is going to rescind their claim. I'm a bit disappointed that we'll probably never find out why and I'm a bit disappointed that this flat out BS remained on their website for so long. I've seen threads with people asking about this dating back to 2009 and 2011. Generally, the person who disagreed with Zipp was poo-poohed because Zipp is somehow considered a more credible source than an engineer.
In light of this discussion, that is very disappointing. What Mattr says about "15-20% of the claims about top end kit are either misleading, misguided or outright lies" is probably quite understated and it calls into serious question this whole process of trying to make educated decisions about buying product based on information posted on a manufacturer's website.