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you come away with the feeling that some of the "greats" were burned out
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There is a special German term for "burned out" pilots (or even whole air units) which I haven't been able to find a suitable translation to (maybe someone can help me?) - "abgeflogen".
Pilots who were found to be "abgeflogen" usually were sent either on furlough in Germany, or to an Ergänzungsgruppe (replacement unit) in the rear where they could recover. Some never were returned to first-line service after being posted to such a "rest". (Even Hartmann was sent on furlough in May 1943, after it was judged that he was "abgeflogen"; see the "Graf & Grislawski" book, p. 161.)
Walter Schuck (whose biography I am writing at the present) went on furlough four times during his period of service with JG 5 from April 1942 to February 1945.
Top aces whom the Nazi leadership was particularly eager to "save" for propaganda reasons were often forbidden to fly more combat missions after they had reached a certain "even" number of victories. Like Mölders following his 100th, Gollob after his 150th, Graf after his 200th, and Nowotny after his 250th.
So the German pilots were not plainly "flown to death".
However, the American "tour" system had no equivalence in the Luftwaffe. One important reason of course was that the USA had enormous masses of people, whereas the German access to soldiers was more limited.
Of course only the most thick-skinned German pilots were able to cope with up to 800 combat missions or even more. In those cases, I don't think there were any symptoms of being "abgeflogen". One of the pilots who flew together with Alfred Grislawski in the fall of 1944 (i.e. when Grislawski had logged about 800 combat missions in almost constant first-line action since 1941) describes his impression of Grislawski by that time:
"Grislawski was a great 'shooter' and fighter, who roamed through the four-engined bombers' formations from in the front and scored his victories faster than the eye could see."