although you won't believe me, but i did actually mean the heels. that's what i interpreted 'balls of feet' to mean. guess i should have researched that term beforehand... in virtually any exercise where your feet stay flat, you keep the weight on the heels. that much is obvious.
you move the quads hams and glutes together, as theyre all working in that part of the deadlift. if i remember correctly, ronnie coleman does 'my' form in his unbelievable video, and you can see it when the camera goes side-on.
if you say you meant heels, i will believe you. i'm skeptical, but okay.
the thing is, ronnie's form is, when he goes heavy, actually pretty rough. it deteriorates over his heavier sets, largely because he readily admits he never goes that heavy normally. for that matter, on his 750 and 800 sets he uses ALL lower back, no quads at all if memory serves. if you want to watch a good puller, check out andy bolton or benedikt magnusson. brian siders comes to mind as well. guys that get their hips involved and pull back on the bar.
it's all leverages, dude. you can take a guy with a 315 deadlift and put him in some flat shoes and get him to lean back more into it and suddenly he's got a 365 pull. now, if you're a bodybuilder and doing reps, then sure the advice is a little moot, but someone doing sets of 6-10 on deadlifts (with straps, likely) is going to pull very differently than someone like me.