It might be that the preson didn't know what they were doing. Make sure you get good referals or go to a salon that is color only. Just get an in depth consultation and be honest even if it means they won't do your color. Tell them all the chemicals you've had on and bring the box color so they can see. Trust me if you had problems with it breaking with just the highlights imagine if it had been your whole head.
You have hot roots right? Which basically means the hair at your root is lighter than the rest of your hair.
yes you can control how fast the bleach lifts by using different volume of developer 10,20,30, and 40 volume. 10 works slowest which in my opinion is best just to make sure it doesn't over process 40 volume will make it work the fastest ususally only good if you are doing cap highlights b/c you are putting bleach on all the hair at the same time instead of with highlights where the bleach sits longer where you first put it. From 10 to 40 it just gets faster.
You can highlight with either color or bleach either way when you're going from a level 1 or 2 darkest brown. The only thing is when you use color and your hair is that dark you can only go about 3 shades lighter. If you want to go even lighter you HAVE to use bleach and then tone it with a semi-permanent color. If you have relaxer in your hair you have to be especially careful. Its ususally not reccomended to use bleach on relaxed hair but some do anyways some with good results (if the stylist is very careful) and some with bad if it overprocesses and or the client's hair wasn't in the best condition here is the section on relaxed hair.
But Like I said I think you can probably achieve the color with a 30 or 40 volume developer and a color that is just a tad bit lighter than what you want since your hair is dark. And when you use 10,20,30,40 volume developer with COLOR it DOES NOT work the same as with bleach. The volume when using color depends on how many LEVELS you want to ligthen 10= 1 20=2 30=3 40=4 if your hair is a natural level 4 or lighter. But if you hair is level 1,2,3 10 wont' do a thing 20=1 level 30=2 40=3
Can you show me on here. .
http://www.clairolpro.com/main.jsp?nav=studio/colortheory/pigment&file=m_pigment.html
the color you were trying to get?
If you're interested in color read this. It gives good basics for even novices on how color works if you have any questions just reply or pm me for clarification b/c some terms can be confusing. (its clairol professional but these fundamentals are true with ANY professional color brand).
http://www.clairolpro.com/main.jsp?nav=studio/colortheory&file=colortheory.html