[grath]

The only place you might find "progression" in a casino chip is among the $1 and .25 chips. Obviously, because they're cheques, a casino wouldn't invest more in a chip than it is worth at face value. As soon as you hit $5, they get as wild or as plain as you might like.
But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what a casino does; a home set has no limitations...except that it should look good. The chips will be standard colors AND they'll have denoms. "Progression," then, becomes a style choice and nothing more. Sidepot will sell more chips if the cash guys AND the Tourney guys like the set. If that means progression, so be it. If not, chuck it.
FWIW, I agree with JM that just because you can doesn't mean you should. The chip-factory offers so many options, it's easy to get carried away.
Lastly, and then I'll go hide: assuming the present track, most people will take their inlay design and try to adjust it to match the chips (tweaked, retweaked, or otherwise). It's been said before, but I have to agree that choosing chips without any clue as to the vibe/feel/theme of an inlay seems like an odd thing. To stick with the coffee analogy: Starbucks uses green and white because it's in their logo, not because they pre-ordered a shipment of green and white cups.
Mostly, though, I'm just super excited to see everybody's inlay contributions.