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Michelin were keen for low profile tyres on the basis that they're more road car relevant. The F1 teams are against it to some extent because they'll have to significantly redesign their cars to cope with the different characteristics.
18" wheels are already used in sportscar racing (Le Mans cars), so they're not unusual and can easily cope with the demands of racing.
The biggest thing to get used to would be the change of the look of the cars as this mock-up of a Virgin with 18" wheels shows...
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I was just about to say the endurance racers tyre are low profile and last a long time. peugeot at last years le mans were doing 12 laps in a stint before they needed re fuelling. The tyres were doing 4 stints before they needed changing. Bearing in mind a lap is about 8 miles long they were doing 386 miles on a set of tyre so well over a race distance in f1 which is roughly 200 miles.
So there is no problem with a low profile lasting the distance or being engineered like the pirelli to fall off of a cliff. there probably would be less marbles though as there is less carcass of the tyre to shed