Very interesting - on trips to Offutt I tried to get a trip on a KC 135 to observe boom refuelling at close hand, but it never happened. The view is certainly better than the restricted one we had through the rear-view periscope on the Victor.
The Navy hates using the boom-basket setup and call it "The Iron Maiden" as it is hard to plug into and can damage the aircraft if it bashes around.
I always assumed that just hanging a hose on the end of a boom would result in a "hard hose" and that confirms it. Broken probes must be quite common.