Yay Vicki!
Just my personal opinion, nothing wrong with going with a clunky, heavy saddle that works. My only issue is that it's leather and I wouldn't wanna mess with maintaining a leather saddle. You've done it before so that aspect might be different for you.
As far as different saddle is concerned, you may want to try a Fizik Kurve Bull. It's an Aliante (which I know kinda works for you) but has a hammock/suspension design which I believe is the same case for the Brooks. The hammock design may eliminate the rubbing/friction issue you had with the normal Aliante. Also, if you still have the Aliante, try messing around with the tilt and maybe use more chamois cream? (I'm serious on that one, I've under applied chamois cream before and it made my otherwise comfortable saddle a little bit miserable).