[Bindlestiff]

Sorry, I guess one obvious answer to my question is that doing the "once or twice around the table method" means the blinds start going up increasingly fast (to a pre-determined max) once the table starts to get short-handed. In most cases this would probably be annoying but we actually like to wrap things up quickly (if artificially) in order to get another game started with everyone involved. We normally play 3 quick 2-hr tourneys in a night.

The fast blind increases at the end removes some of the skill but that's the trade-off for keeping people involved I suppose...