I've never had any trouble with good ball heads, with any of my lenses up to a 300mm f2.8. Of course I don't need to have the ball hold the camera and lens at 90 deg (portrait mode) as all my heavy lenses have a tripod collar.
For macro work I need to use expensive tripods with a good ball head. The tripods are Gitzo explorer, which aren't cheap but I have found nothing else that really does the job and allows you to get down to ground level. I use ball heads and even the cheaper manfrotto ball heads are ok, though I do use more expensive heads too as, like Arthur, I am not keen on the manfrotto quick release system (it can move) and I like arca-swiss better.