All my bamboo dpns are the cheapie Clover ones and I've never had any of them splinter. One of my 1s is a little bent, but they're so thin I'm not surprised.

I prefer dpns because my knitting form sucks and I can prop my left hand needle on my stomach to help out my useless non-dominant left hand.

I'm trying to get over that, though, because I love making socks, but not the process of making TWO, so I'm going to try out knitting two on one long circ: http://www.misocrafty.squarespace.com/journal/2006/1/30/turkish-cast-on-tutorial.html