Gah. I'd have to say that what happened to Ender was less bad than what happened to River (either standard-River or your wirehead-River, actually). They rarely actually lied to Ender. He got to fly around in null-g and play cool video games. He had alternatives, if not a lot of choice. He got Val back. They didn't carve chunks out of his brain, at least not physically. The fact that they stretched his heart and spirit tight enough to break is pretty abstract, by comparison.