I do death saves on my own machines and never considered it "rough on the machine" but I have carpet sliders under my legs and the machines spaced apart so no contact between the pins. To be honest once you get good there really is minimal movement of the pin itself, just a slight jerk, a hard slap save probably has more impact on the machine.

But I feel "dirty" if I would get on the leaderboard while using a death save, so I only do on casual game once and while. But agree with everyone that it should not be done on location and have respect for other's machines. I wouldn't ask someone if I could do it on their machine.

Holy cow I have never moved the machine that aggressively lol. But in my case I do it when ball has left field of play and light jerk to get it back with the left flipper up so I guess "death save". Didn't know the distinction between them thanks for posting that.