The more expensive SRAM chains are prettier because they have plated sideplates, but I'm not sure that makes them shift better or last longer. I've been using what the manufacturer installed on the bike; PC951 for the drive chain and PC850 for the timing chain.

We have not yet broken a chain. I had installed a new drive chain a while back and developed a "skip" after a few miles. It turned out that there was a stiff link in the chain and it wasn't bending over the smaller cogs. This is a frustrating problem to diagnose since the first thing you suspect is a mis-adjusted derailleur. We pulled into a bike shop, had the mechanic loosen up the link for us and it worked fine after that.

I'm finding that we don't get much more than 1000 miles on a drive chain. Cassettes are not doing so well either; I find that if I don't replace the cassette with each new chain we have skipping issues in our "favorite" cogs.