I broke a spoke on my new brompton a month after buying it. Replaced it myself. Ended up replacing two or three before the rim wore out at 12 months.

Just my opinion: it's virtually impossible to snap a spoke through tension. Breaking strength is around 300kg each spoke. Even if you hit a kerb head on the load would be taken by 3 or more spokes. All the failures i've encountered have been at the elbow. I reckon they failed through flexing. Because the lacing was not tight enough. I've now rebuilt the wheel twice and laced it as tight as I can get it. And not broken a spoke since.

So reducing the number of spokes isn't, to my mind, going to weaken the wheel. It will leave longer sections of rim unsupported. But since the rim is so small these sections are short.