////If it's not a mechanical problem then maybe it's playing style... Some folks play hard and others don't...////

I used to play with a guitarist who broke electric guitar strings all the time. When I watched him playing lead runs, I noticed that he cocked his pick and would play with the edge of it--kind of dig it into the string for volume. I told him that he was effectively sawing his strings apart and that's why they were breaking. I really didn't know this for certain but that's what it seemed to me was happening. That turned out to be the problem because he trained himself to use the flat of the pick and the problem went away. He never had the problem when he strummed because he used the flat while strumming but he cocked the pick when playing leads. He never would have noticed what he was doing if I hadn't pointed it out.

So there's all kinds of things that people do that wreak havoc on their strings and they probably don't know it and blame it on the strings.