Eldergirl
"guilty as charged, Jim!"
However you choose to sing is entirely up to the singer, but if head-voice is not your natural voice (it seldom is) then it is a choice you have made and it is not carved in stone.
The 'gear change' is handleable (Peggy Seeger and Sandra Kerr did a lot of work on it if my memory serves) - both have developed excellent control when they choose to use it.
The breath problems that come with head voice are a different matter, especally when you're getting on in years and more especially if you are/where a smoker.
Head voice takes twice as much breath to produce and can restrict your ability to handle long lines.
We had a singer who had had medical breathing problems but had chosen to sing most of her songs using H.V. with the built in long line problems.
As soon as she tried chest voice production the breath problems vanished.
It's all a matter of personal choice of course, and the singer is the only one to make that choice.
Personally I find the natural speaking tone singing of say those used by Jeannie Robertson or Sheila Stewart's knife-edged tone, far more convincing than the somewhat milk-and-water effect produced by many women singers who have beautifully rich speaking voices, rather than the breathy tones produced by many who choose to sing otherwise.
Jim Carroll