Should I consider a rescue cat or a 'retired' breeding cat?

One thing which has been bothering me slightly is the fact that I am over 65, and my health is not 100% as the result of a couple of major back operations. Once the time comes to get a new 'pet', if I decided to get a Maine Coon kitten, then not only would it be 4 to 5 years before he/she was a fully mature, cat which had attained full size, but additionally he or she could be expected to live for 15 years. Being realistic, this might mean that I could well die before the cat did, leaving another 'problem' for my wife (I know this all sounds morbid!).
Therefore, on thing I had thought about was the idea of perhaps getting a 'rescue' Maine Coon, or a cat which has been retired from actual breeding, but who still has many years of happy and active life ahead of him or her.
Some questions spring to mind. You never know how a cat which is up for rescue has been handled in the past, and what traumatic experiences it will have gone through. How well do Maine Coons adapt to a new environment, where he or she will be loved, and wanted to be around?
If getting an ex-breeding cat, will such have been used to lots of human company whilst in the breeders care, and thus fully socialised? I'm thinking that perhaps in this case, it would be a matter of which breeder you are talking about, definitely NOT from a 'kitten factory', but perhaps from a breeder who is in the business because they are simply Maine Coon devotees, and not in the business to churn out kittens in an attempt to make a profit.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Our very first MC was a retired breeding queen,she came from a very good home but was a handfull,the breeder didn't tell us until after she had plonked herself on our laps & won us over,we had some tough times with her but again the breeder knew we would cope & we couldn't have wished for a more loving girl as time went on & it was her who gave us the love of the breed, I would never say never that if we went down in numbers & still able to give a cat a good home that we won't go down that route again,my breeder friend has placed several of her ex breeding queens into pet homes{she for sure is in it for the love} & they have all settled been well loved & given a lot of love in return, for sure I would say it is a very good way to go.....xxx

when you get a kitten, you never really know how it is going to develop, you never know if it's going to be a pirate for example. When you get a full grown cat, usually after a couple of meetings you can gage if you're going to get along....

I have two rescue MC's, and I think just like any cat you never know what you're going to get until you meet them. Mandy was around 2 years old when we adopted her, she was rescued from an abandoned hoarder house (as if either one of those situations alone wasn't bad enough!). She was intensely affectionate with me from the first hour and became best buds with our tabby/Bengal, Rose. She took a while to adjust to the kids, but seemed okay otherwise...until we adopted a large male cat. Mandy's "wild" tendencies erupted and she was a snarling, growling, swatting, horrible creature for about four months. She is also very fearful of strangers and will kind of "go feral" when there are visitors. But the rest of the time she is a sweet bundle of purrs and kneading and head butts.
Merlin is our most recent MC rescue. He had been literally treated like garbage and left next to a dumpster at a local shelter. He weighed six pounds and most of his teeth were completely rotten and had to be removed. The vet initially estimated Merlin to be 12-15 years old, but after a few months of good food and lots of love we think he's probably 8-10 years old. Either way, he's "old" for a shelter cat and most people do not want older cats. Merlin is the most loving and talkative cat we've ever had and lives up to the MC bill completely! Even though he was totally let down by people and should have zero reason to trust a human ever again, Merlin greeted his rescuers at the shelter with a chirp and a head butt, still hoping that someone would love him again. I would recommend adopting an older cat to anyone. They sometimes need more care, especially if they are coming from a shelter situation (we had a nasty bladder infection to tackle with Merlin) but I think it's far better they live out the rest of their lives with a loving family instead of in a shelter.