And why would you want to push a preamp harder...? I've never (ever) heard a preamp that sounded more linear being pushed - and typically, the subtle (but stackable - hardly notice it on a single track, but when you have 20 or 30, you wonder what the hell happened) distortion and noise is hardly "friendly" by any stretch.
Sure - There's a preamp here and there that stand above such things --- Crane Song's "Flamingo" would be one. One that has absolutely obscene amounts of headroom in the first place, the ability to push the heck out of the front end of the preamp while being able to buffer the outputs (so you're not subjecting any further circuitry to your distortive creativity). But preamps like that are few and far between...