I live in a dry climate and the raw Hedmans on the car now have held up great for almost a decade. In fact the surface rust was so minimal that when I went to reinstall them on a new 360 3 years ago I just sprayed them with VHT header primer, and it's still holding up. I also tend to not drive the car much in rain or snow. Even the mild steel downpipes I fabbed and sprayed with VHT are still in great shape after 7 years and back then I did drive it in snow and rain.
Ceramic coating would be nice but $200 is hard to justify for "maybe they'll last 15 years instead of 10..."? I was ready to buy them raw tbh but saw how little extra cost the hi-temp black coating is... if it's really THAT necessary for full ceramic coating I'm gonna have to wait to buy these. And I've already been waiting 3 years lol.