Dave, maybe I don't understand exactly what you are saying, but I disagree somewhat. If you have a load that cycles from zero to 6000 lbs and you put in a bolt good for 10000 lbs (lets ignore safety factors for now) and torque it to 6000 lb clamp load, it can then hold up to 6000 lbs without stretching any farther, thus giving you zero fatigue cycles- good thing. If you load it up with 4000 more lbs (a total of 10,000) the bolt will begin to stretch more as the load exceeds 6000 lbs. The bolt is still good for the 10,000 lbs total but now you introduce fatigue cycles as the load exceeds the 6000 lb clamp load, and it will eventually fail as the fatigue limit is reached. Now here is where I disagree with you, if you torque the bolt to 10,000 lbs clamp load just to make sure, you haven't hurt anything even if the load never exceeds 6000 lbs. You will never get any fatigue cycles and the 10,000 lb clamp load on the bolt is still within its capabilities (ignoring safety factors as previously stated). In other words, there is no value in trying to torque a bolt to just barely above the expected load. Just torque it to the recommended value for that size and grade of bolt.