It doesn't really matter what strings are used for what - it's all personal taste - as long as the string tension can cope with scale length and tuning, and as long as they sound equal in tone and projection.

Example: If you buy a tenor guitar from somewhere like Hobgoblin Music, the scale length will really be intended for something around octave mandolin tuning - and the string gauges used will be appropriate for that. However, those same string gauges will not be appropriate for a tenor guitar in "standard" viola (CGDA) tuning, and will break.

For my CGDA tenor guitar, I use Elixir .010 gauge Phosphor Bronze Nanoweb, but swap out the top .010 string for a .009 gauge string - less tension and closer to breaking point. (The top string on a tenor in this tuning is A above the top E of a conventional guitar).

I don't tend to break strings at acoustic gigs. The nearest I get to breaking a string is at a band gig, when playing electrically. However, I can change a string in about 30 seconds flat because, when I designed and commissioned the guitar, I specified a Lowden-style bridge. With no bridge pegs to worry about, changing a string simply involves whipping off the broken bits of the old string, threading the new string through the bridge and winding it round the tuning peg. Simples.

And I always use coated strings (Nanoweb, not Polyweb) because I can kill a set of uncoated strings stone dead in a morning's playing!