What is overloaded there are just the resistors, nothing else. The resistors do not dissipate much more than about a watt or so for a 100W power supply design. So in the terms of the overall operation losses at full power, the resistor losses are negligible.
In case of the discharge controller failure (an anticipated failure mode, pretty equivalent to when supplying the thing from DC) the resistors should remain still safe. But that does not mean it may not degrade e.g. the PCB till a flash over and os blowing fuse.
If speaking about safety, there is way more severe consequence of running the thing at DC and not AC: It is the used fuse to protect against fire if some destructive failure mode happens. These fuses are designed just for AC, for DC they may not operate properly and that would be really very severe fire hazard (regardless of the filter capacitor discharge)... And that is the reason, why you should never ever use any supply, which does not conform to the device rating. If the ballast is rated 100..277VAC, you may use it on 120V, on 240V, but you can never use it on a 180V locomotive starter battery (have seen that to illuminate the battery bay - hooked directly on the batteries, but it was with a ballast at least rated for 200..280VDC, beside the usual 100..250VAC)...
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