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If one of the ball bearings fell out of the gimble bearing, the cage must be getting distorted, which can lead to the bearing totally failing and that can cause more damage (driveshaft seizure, damage to the gimble housing, etc). I don't think anyone here would tell you to run it like that.
Normally if the bearing doesn't get water in it and it is greased regularly (for greaseable ones) they last a very long time. I last replaced mine about 19 years ago. If it's a permanently lubed bearing well they do eventually wear out. The boat is 28 years old!
It's a typical repair on an I/O so just get it done, replace bellows at the same time and check the u joints while you're at it.
I pull the drive every year to check everything, grease the gimble, u joints and driveshaft splines.
Keep in mind that the only way you can grease the driveshaft splines on the VP, as the similar OMC Cobra, is to pull the drive, they never had a grease fitting for this on the coupler.
many years ago (1975) I had a front wheel bearing fail on my family's relatively new 1972 Chevy Impala due to a bad mechanic over tightening it. The bearing eventually overheated, snapped the end of the spindle and the disc rotor jammed in the caliper locking up the brake. If the car had drum brakes up front the wheel would have completely come off. I would not want a failure of a bearing in the driveline of an I/O, failures of them or the u joints can damage the gimble housing the the point where the bellows doesn't seal and the boat can take on a lot of water.
BTW that incident led to my doing most of my brake and bearing maintenance since then.
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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8
1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II
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