I like the firestik's but watched 2 of them break a few weekends ago.
I have abused the heck out of mine firestick but I also have it mounted to a spring. Did the ones you saw break have those springs on them?
Also I have to agree with making sure you antenna is tuned correctly. My CB wasn't transmitting well until I had the antenna tuned, then it worked great. I have a cobra it looks like the classic series.
one was and one wasn't however we were off road so they tend to get abused worse then if just driving down the road