I pulled the head and have found the source of the wear. It is not anything on the camshaft or the bottom face of the lifter. Rather the top socket on the lifter on #3 valve has been severely eaten away by the pushrod. I measured it and it is .020-.022 shorter than the others because of the excess wear. I checked all the cam lobes and they all measure out with the correct lift and visually look good as well. Bottom of all the lifters all look good as well. Oil supply holes all are clear on the rocker shaft and the rockers and valve tips look good. So i strongly believe the lifters supplied with my VP cam are defective junk, the pushrods also came from VP and are undamaged. So the lifters maybe are too soft, or pushrods too hard? The other lifters showed some decent wear from the pushrods as well considering they only have 1,500 miles on them. So i am putting in a set of Isky SBC style lifters and their matching pushrods and breaking in again. I see no reason to do a cam change at this point. I have contacted VP and am hoping they can help offset the cost of the new parts, gaskets and break in goodies.
Thanks for all the help!