Glass is a top rate material, whether you're smoking or vaporizing. But if you're worried about breaking it, there are excellent vapes available that don't use it. As for shattering, I wouldn't worry about that. Even should you break something, there'll be no flying glass. The part you'd be likely to drop-the whip/bowl, is pretty thick glass (especially SSV/Da Buddha wands) and would just break into good sized chunks.

Since a whip type vape takes a little more work-putting the bowl to the heat multiple times, stirring, etc., maybe you'd want to consider a bag vape. It's a lot easier for the most part-set the temp, load the bowl, attach the bag and you're done. Good ones in the $250-300 range are the herbalAire and Extreme. For you, I'd recommend the herbalAire-no glass. Of course there's the Volcano too-no glass but over twice the price.

Relief for my lungs was the reason I turned to vapor. After many years of smoking cigarettes and weed (even though I quit the cigs back in '96), I was ready to give it up because my lungs couldn't take smoke anymore. The few hits I was taking off my pipe every night were still sapping my wind and giving me a chronic cough. A short time after switching to vapor my wind was much better and the cough disappeared. It's a world of difference. I can still overload my lungs with a strong whip hit, but it's much easier to deal with than smoke, and doesn't leave my lungs burning and aching. Bagged vapor is even easier to deal with, since all the hits are pretty much the same. Might dry the throat out a little, but some water will rehydrate you. Either way, vapor is definitely the way to go for lung relief.