Yes, I did see a couple of broken buffers, but they had not been in the cold. There were a couple of other parts that failed but the specific memory escapes me.
I don't remember at what point they went to choke tubes. I know their popularity took off for a while due to the downright lousy early steel shotshell loads. I had one briefly, and I had no problems, and then went to three successive BPSs. They were all just too heavy to handle well for me, and I was a big guy. The last BPS I machined about 2 pounds off and it was world's better, and then tungsten came along and I went back to a 3" 12.
But, there is nothing like a 10 gauge for big birds with steel shot.