Jim, women use the head voice in order to be able to get the notes, not because they want to "sound" ladylike! The register break is usually around G above middle C, leaving you a range of less than an octave if you don't sing above it. Register breaks vary, but if you try to push yours beyond where it naturally falls, you'll absolutely & permanently ruin your voice.

A few singers do simply seem to have no break at all (Barbra Streisand comes to mind, who appears to be able to go right off the treble stave without damage - and she still sounds great today) (heard her live on Oprah awhile back, sans studio effects and splices). But I've also seen a lot of young singers try to imitate her style and perish on the rocks of the formidable range of her songs (Evergreen comes to mind).

I too detest the breathy little-innocent-me sound of a lot of singers I hear today, but that's either bad vocal technique or a stylistic choice. (Anbody remember Claudine Longet's recordings? Used to irritate me beyond belief for that very reason.)

Some female singers can get away with using only their lower register and make a fine job of it. But - like having an acrobatically agile body - you simply need to possess the vocal equipment to do this; it's not a matter of choice. Otherwise your options are: pitch the song low enough that you don't have to sing above your register break (but women's voices don't go terribly low and don't sound their best in the basement; and it also means the song has to have a small range) or else strain your voice (which doesn't sound good anyway). The other thing to consider is: if you're a "belter" how many years is your voice going to last? Usually they only have a fairly short heyday, after which they get a wobble which sounds like a flywheel tearing loose, or a grainy huskiness which resembles scraping sandpaper and often causes nodes on the vocal cords.

I have experience of singing in both head and chest voices, and don't find one register any more difficult to control than the other, nor have I ever heard of this. Also it doesn't require any more breath - it's just singing in a different part of one's range and part of female vocal anatomy.

Men sang falsetto all the time in the past - i.e. countertenors/male altos, who still enjoy flourishing careers today in the early music scene. But it's certainly more unusual and tends to be restricted to one genre. But criticising the use of head voice is like criticising a violin for not being a cello.

There will probably now follow a bunch of posts from women who say they have no trouble with register breaks and that all this doesn't apply to them - because it DOESN'T apply to everyone. But it's a anatomical fact for many (most?) women singers. If you're one of the exceptions, count yourself lucky.