I've been using Campy carbon brake levers since they first came out, over 10 years sgo. I've crashed a number of times and never broken a carbon brake lever. They have hit the pavement and scrapped the clearcoat off in a couple of places, but never broken. Tose scrapes wre easily fixed with nail polish or clear lacquer.

I had a car/bike accident with my nearly new 11 speed shifters in November of '08. That was the first time that I really broke a shifter after 15 years of using Campy. Another rider next to me got broadsided first and pushed sideways into me. I've got no idea what hit the shifter, because the brake lever and brake hood were undamaged but the whole upper part of the ergo body broke off. Campy used to sell new ergo bodies, so you could replace one for $30 or so. They recently quit that, so I had to buy a major assembly that includes everything except the brake lever, brake hood and band clamp. That cost a $100, but it was worth it to fix $280 shifters. I also had a good use for the spare internal parts - converting a Centaur 10 shifter to 11 speed at no cost.

SR is in no way better in quality than lower level shifters. The only difference between SR, Record and Chorus is one titanium part and cutouts in the brake lever. Those two tings only drop about 10 grams per pair of shifters, so you pay a lot and get little for it. It pays to analyze what you're getting for the money before selecting a groupo. You can always mix levels to get just what you want. I'm using all Record except for cassettes and chains. Chrous cassettes cost 1/3 what SR does and last twice as long.