I've never broken any of my pieces of mine, but my friend has broken two of my slides, and a bowl. Maybe it was karmas retribution for the belly laugh I let out when he just let his bong (the DLW, dirty little whore) crash to ground. I did brake a sweet bowl of his, it had The Misfits skull etched in it, fell out of my sweat shirt pocket as I was putting wood in to my wood burner.
I only buy locally for pieces though. They have shit for glass bowls, but I have two great ceramic bongs that I picked up at a local flea market, only 30 bucks. Nothing special, but they look nice, and get the job done.