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Well I'm certainly not an expert, but when non-ferrous metals are annealed, "the crystal arrangement contains irregularities called vacancies. These facilitate crystal movement and so contribute to malleability." "Eventually crystals will realighn themselves into an organized lattice" Quoted from Complete Metalsmith Student Edition 2004.
I'm not sure if the second sentence means that eventually a work hardened piece will become less hard or if an annealed piece will become hard. In my jewelry class they told us an annealed piece would reharden on its own over time. I've also found that work hardened brass is a bit stiffer than when I buy it, which itself is not annealed.
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