head seal part 2

moin , now I have taken my head down today to change the seal ……… to my horror I found that the old head seal was actually quite ok (only bit old and reudig) because of that sometimes a quick question; can it still have been broken (even without which you can see the optically ) and the old as well as the new head seal some water channels is normal ? (I had thought about broken head seal since the car hardly Leistun g had run and bezin in oil and oil in water….naja and halt completely restless ….