I like Breitlings very much, but most of them are too big for me to wear. Here is one of mine that I bought about 15 or so years ago.
May 1962, astronaut Scott Carpenter became only the second American to orbit the Earth solo aboard the "Aurora 7" Mercury capsule.... He received a 24 Hr dial Breitling "Cosmonaut" Navitimer chronograph, which he was very proud of... However this Breitling was water damaged during the May 24th, 1962 recovery by USS Intrepid in the Atlantic Ocean near Puerto Rico .
To be honest, I kind of forgot that they even exist. I'd wear a vintage one any day, but would never consider buying a modern Breitling.
Breitling is one of those brands whom produce some amazingly bad looking watches - blinged out to the max - and yet still do produce some understated ones as well in 38mm. Pretty much anything in their "women's" collection is a perfectly appropriately sized mens watch. Still wouldn't buy one new.
I have always wanted a '74 Navi Chrono-matic as my birth year watch but there are just way too many watches I want more.
I feel like the issue with vintage Breitling is that you just don't see very many good examples show up on the secondary market very often (exceptions being the 806). I personally have been on the hunt for a later Chronomat 808 with lume plots on the inside track. I've only seen 1 show up at a dealer in the past 18 months I've been looking. Then you consider how often a clean TopTime 810 shows up. Maybe 1-2 every quarter? In fact, I think most of desirable vintage Breitlings (765AVI, SuperOcean 2005, etc) have really only come up for sale through dealers. I can't think of very many private sales so far this year.
I've got a navitimer world which was my first big spend on watches. I love it. Breitling Source is a useful forum. http://breitlingsource.com/phpBB2/index.php?sid=14ea402ce6b6e7dd79594bf4a7e41213