The stock breadcrumb functionality in Drupal leaves something to be desired. It is often times too simple and does not provide intuitive breadcrumbing. Fortunately there are a number of ways to get around the limitations.

The MOST extensible method would be using the theme_breadcrumb hook. It has limitless possibilities. The trade off is it can introduce limitless complexity. If your site needs some heavy duty bread crumbs, by all means create a template hook.

I needed a quick and easy method of breadcrumbing. I achieved this by using the custom breadcrumbs module and a sprinkingling of php code. Fortunately my needs were relativly simple.

I have a view that contains a listing of a particular node type. One instance is Press Releases. Each list item links to a node. The Custom Breadcrumbs module only supports creating breadcrumbs for node pages, it does not currenlty support views. This makes creating the breadcrumbs a 2 step process.

Step 1. - Create breadcrumb rule using custom breadcrumbs.

Navigate to admin/build/custom_breadcrumbs.

Create a rule for your node type.

For Title use:

Node Name
[title]

For Paths use:

node-type
node/[nid]

Save it and navigate to a node detail page of the selected node type.

Next you'll need to create the breadcrumb for the node view.

Navigate to the edit screen of the view.

Under Page -> Header textfield you will be using the drupal_add_breadcrumb hook.

$links = array(l(t('home'), ''), l(t('Node Type'), 'node-list-url'));
drupal_set_breadcrumb($links);

Be sure to select PHP as your input format.

The above is a real basic example and assumes you are using a "page" view. It should provide the basic details.