Around these parts, fall and winter means that chili is rotated in as a regular dish, particularly on weekends (football, etc). My chili can best be described as "basic" or "plain". Good, but nothing spectacular. It's a "throw some stuff in a slow cooker and let it go all day" kind of affair.
I'm generally only cooking for my wife and myself, so I can experiment some. Any tips on great chili? Techniques, spice blends, unorthodox ingredients, etc. There's obviously a lot of info out there (including what defines 'chili'....), but I haven't seen much on this site yet.
PS: In terms of "heat", I usually shoot for "medium", since the wife doesn't like anything tooooo spicy. But I'm gradually dragging her to the dark side :)