Remo's coating generally doesn't ever come off for me.
Recently, I had one 16" head kind of nick up a bit fairly quickly, but it never flaked off, and never got worse than the few initial spots. It happened within 5 hours or so of rehearsals I'd say. I don't dent the Coated Ambassador either.
Other people have had the Remo coating mess up a lot. Who knows why some people have bad luck and others don't?
Aquarian's single ply coated heads dent up and sound kinda dull for me, but work great for others, so go figure.
I used Aquarian back in '99 or so, before they changed their film. The new stuff was supposed to sound "warmer", closer to Calf--but it was 1999-2000, and how many drummers wanted, or cared about "the calf sound" then?
After the change, they dented to crap on me in less than 1 set on a gig, and sounded thinner. THAT was a big bummer because I really liked their drumheads.
Aquarian has a new film (NU Bright, NuBrite?) now, so I may try them again and see if the old sound I liked is back, but, I have no complaints with the Coated Ambassadors I've used for years now either.
Smooth White heads are made from White Film, there's no coating involved.