"Active (amplified) antennas can lead to desensitizing of the recieve circuitry on scanners from an overly strong signal."
Not quite, you need a REALLY strong signal to do that, like the antennas only a few feet away from each other. I used to do a lot of 2M mobiling and sometimes two or more vehicles close by were on the same repeater. Those within about 20-30' from each other experienced desense, those farther away did not.
Likely you're thinking about intermod, moderately strong signals will mix with others and clobber seemingly unrelated frequencies. Actually they are but the math is fairly complex. Broadband receive preamps when overloaded produce it within themselves and too much gain will overload the receiver causing the same effect. That's why I hate those infernal things, TV mast end amplifiers are notorious TVI generators but that's another story.
"(Over time this stresses the recieve components)."
Not so. An extremely strong signal will blow the front end to smithereens but that takes antennas only a few feet apart and a fair amount of power to do it. In the case of "receive components" it's an all or nothing proposition, they either burn out or they don't.
