just went to tampa for a session this weekend.
they had a $50 table... 6 deck, S17, DAS, NRSA, hand shuffle, no surrender, mid shoe entry ALLOWED. you definitely want to play in the high limit room and stay well away from the rest. i also find the most competent dealers are in there too, so you get dealers that can put out 200+ h/hr (with shuffling) no problem.
as for heat, i played an entire shoe and hit a bad variance swing and lost what i bought in for; when i went to stand up to take a break, pit lady comes back and acts legitimately shocked that i lost it so quickly. for the entire 5-10 minutes of the shoe, it was just the dealer and i, no pit crew, no pit boss, no heat whatsoever. spreading 1-20 without cover, nobody seems to care.
just want to correct some of the misconceptions here.