If you want to do that, use vnlog instead. You're 90% there already. It formalizes the idea of a header to label columns, and allows normal unix data-processing tools to just work with those labels. Your awk use case is quite literally "vnl-filter --eval"
Good on the author for listing other similar programs. I have been testing one of them, datamash. Its documentation claims it is faster than uniq in some situations.
https://github.com/dkogan/vnlog/