I had this same quandary. I managed to get breadcrumbs on the products page by adding the following to app/design/frontend/THEME/default/layout/calalog.xml
<catalog_product_view translate="label">
<-- existing content -->
<reference name="content">
<-- existing blocks -->
<block type="catalog/product_view" name="product.info" template="catalog/product/view.phtml">
<-- existing blocks -->
<block type="page/html_breadcrumbs" name="breadcrumbs" as="breadcrumbs"/>
</block>
</reference>
<-- existing content -->
</catalog_product_view>
Then in catalog/product/view.phtml add the following where you would like the breadcrumbs to appear.
<?php echo $this->getChildHtml('breadcrumbs') ?>