I'm one of those guys who is very particulare about breaking in my cars. I swear my cars run better and longer than the average. Whenever the car goes in for service, I always ask the dealer mechanics how the car runs compared to other similar cars with similar mileage. Only once was I told one of my cars didn't run better than the average. Also, I'm told my mileage is higher than the norm, and yes, I drive my cars hard most of the time. My 94 Civic with 146K miles, for example, gets 35 city and 45 hwy, again, I'm not driving like Grandpa. My 01 EX Accord gets 28 city and 36 hwy. Anyways, I read years ago the following method, that I use to this day:

BRAKES: Lite braking for the first 50 miles, then no hard stops for the first 500. If this doesn't exceed your owners manuals recommendations, then listen to what they say.

ENGINE: Drive it easy for the first 500 miles. This means without getting higher than 2500 - 2600 RPMs in any one gear. Once you hit 500 miles, slowly increase the RPMs in each gear until at the end of 1500 miles, your driving the vehicle like you'll drive it on a daily basis.

I know this sounds like a long time, but it's paid off (or at least I think it has) for me. It's interesting that I've convinced my wife that this method is the way to go. Rather than screw it up (or believe she did), she lets me break in all our new cars.