I've done the drilling trick and it's good to get by until you can replace it. I had a 16" thin crash with two wicked cracks in it and it had a very dark, quiet sound. They're cool for special effects or sandwiched together, but not for much more.
Back in the day, I hit much harder and broke more cymbals. I think the advice about loose grip is very good. Also, keep the nut loose and use extra felts. Setting the cymbals lower and tilted like Da Skunk said works good too.
Then there's stick changes... I used to play 2B and have recently switched to 8D jazz. Now that I'm singing lead and playing simultaneously, the thinner, lighter sticks work much better. Also, haven't cracked a cymbal in quite a while. The volume isn't an issue since everything's mic'd up anyway. Now that I'm used to the 8Ds my 2Bs feel like baseball bats.
I've also noticed that although Zildjians sound best, they tend to be brittle. For this reason, I switched to Sabian early on. I'll probably pick up a couple more Zildjians for the jazz setup, but keep the Sabians for rock. As far as Paiste goes, I've had bad luck in the past, but that was probably my baseball bat technique.