Cash games i've played in only needed 3 chip levels. Did we want more to show off our chips? Of course... but our Nickle/Dime/Quarter game was $.25/1/5 on the table 99% of the time... If we put $25s on the table it was because someone had gone belly up and when they bought in we gave them that and the table made change, so the physical number of chips rarely went up (by more than a few chips) and we enjoyed asking occasionally "Who's got the green chips now?"
8/8/6 is what people bought in for ($2/$8/$30) so 2 "yuppie food stamps". The quarters were usually for ante and opening bets, and we had a rule you could only raise 4 times, so nobody tossed in more than $5 in a round of betting. Some games like elevator hi/low that could still be $35 total if there was a lot of action, but those pots were normally split. We did make change among ourselves a lot however. If you were betting $1 at a time, at some point someone would put in a $5 and take 4 $1... it made everyones stack easy to count.
When people bought back in, they bought back in for $25 (or 50/75). With 6-9 people at the table usually, we were playing dealers choice a lot early on, then limit hold'em. Then we got into tournaments and everything changed...
Nobody ever lost their shirt unless they were aggressive and stupid. I think the most i lost in a night was $80, and the most i won $120 or so.
