I do enjoy a good hot "cookoff style" chili, but my chili is more of a comfort food "gramma style". I do use more cayenne than gramma would though... I go a bit heavy on the tomato products, when I'm making it it tastes like spaghetti sauce until I start adding the chili powder, cumin, and stuff. My only trick is that I take a recipe that calls for 2 lbs of meat, and I use 3 lbs without changing anything else.
My friend's wife made some mango salsa at a cookout a few weeks ago, she used a couple of tiny little chilis, I don't remember what they were but they were little red guys about 1/2" long each. She was supposed to only use one. That salsa would sneak up on you because it was so delicious with the mangos and cilantro and stuff, but it would just keep burning and burning until you killed it with beer.