I have pretty much given up on LE's also.
As a matter of fact, My collecting interest now focuses on 3 main area's, A/C chips [ Yep, that's where I'm still hooked as I have them all and want to keep my collection current] Back to that in a moment.
A/C roulettes.... No worry there about LE's but who knows, some genius may decide to issue a roulette LE knowing that roulettes are harvested anyway.
And...... Millenniums. Hey in this area, I at least don't have to worry about anymore LE's for about 95 years

You make quite a valid point regarding LE's but you have to also remember that one man's garbage is another man's gold. My feeling is that chip collecting is still in its infancy. Though chips in general someday might be totally obsolete [and we are heading in that direction] now at least the hobby is growing by leaps and bounds.

Imagine an LE issue of 500 that might seem more than enough now, but suppose in 10 or 20 years with the influx of new collectors will it be?
Perhaps these same chips that are shunned by so many will be the comic books of the future.
The one thing that can be said at least is that most of the LE's ARE limited editions.

I agree collecting older house chips etc. have the history of gaming attatched to them. They have that mystique of an era gone by and you wonder if Frank Sinatra might have ever held that chip 50 years ago. BUT...
On the other hand, how many times have you read that someone found a box of these or a box of those and the chip you just paid several hundred dollars for is now worth considerably less. You have to remember that in most cases, house issues are totally open ended and only God knows how many are out there.
To me, as a collector who really isn't interested in the monetary aspect this still is a bit of a disappointment. So you see, there are positive and negative aspects be said for in virtually all collecting areas.

My personal feeling is that an area of chip that has kind of been shortchanged over the years and is only coming to the forefront of collecting today is roulettes.
Here are chips that are certainly more difficult to get, there are less of each produced and they too carry the history of gaming present and past attatched to them. Five or so years ago when I first entered the hobby aside from people like Jerry Birl [ known fondly as Mr. Roulette ] there were very few roulette collectors out there, look now.

The problem that I see now is not just that there are many casinos that are chip mills but the greed factor has entered the picture.
As an example look at A/C LE's. No longer are most casino's happy with turning out $5 chips but many are now cranking out $10's $20's $25's and $100's. In the end, this might be the straw that broke the Camels back