I use a Brooks Conquest which is a discontinued model. I tried a B17 and decided I wanted a narrower saddle.
The late Sheldon Brown has a pretty good discussion here.
http://sheldonbrown.com/saddles.html
A friend of mine tried about a half dozen saddles last year. He set a goal of a lot of miles and in this geographic area there is only about 7 months of non-freezing temperatures, I think he rode about 8,000 miles last year during those 7 months. He tried a few Brooks saddles and ended up with a soft mattress style that I thought would have been a disaster for him but that is what he prefered. So, the bottom line is that no two people will have the same preferences when it comes to a bike saddle. Just because a lot of people use Brooks saddles, it might not be ideal for you.
The people that participated in this survey know long distance bicycling, about half used leather saddles, but about half did not.
http://www.bikequarterly.com/BQPBPEquipsurvey.pdf