I play everything from shred to jazz. its all about technique. After a point hitting the strings harder is just wasted effort, especially if you play with distortion, since distortion compresses transients. The styles hardest on the strings imo are blues and hardcore/punk. One because it relies on transients and dynamics a lot, one because everyone who plays it just thrashes away.
in fact....
YouTube - Extreme whammy abuse - Ibanez ZR tremolo
Observe. I can do that to strings without them breaking. I can also hit them as hard as I like without them breaking, to the point where any further force risks damaging the guitar as a whole, or my hand!
If your strings break, you're using bad strings, you're hitting them WAY too hard, or theres something wrong with your setup or guitar hardware. Even with Elixir Strings, which for me last roughly 3 to 5 months (I normally change uncoated strings once a month or every 2 months at the latest), I've had not a single string break. Ever.
If you leave strings on your guitar much longer than that, and you play every day, then frankly I think you're killing your strings with age. By that time (3 months for uncoated and 6 months for coated) I consider my strings to be worn out and too dull to carry on with.