While the lowest levels of playchips are typcially allin shoves with any two all the time, as you ascend the playchip ladder you begin to encounter more reasonable play. I'd still say the highest rungs of playchips are looser/more maniacal then the lowest rungs of the real money micros, but you actually DO encounter a number of thinking players at the upper levels.
I know people like to trash playchip play for teaching bad habits, but for someone without a lot of hand experience ascending the playchip ladder can teach a lot about basic hand experience/strength,
bankroll management & going bust (without the heartache), and dealing with a TON of suckouts and keeping it in perspective. You can also start weeding out the better players from the trash heap, and begin to assign playing styles and ranges to them.
In my personal experience, I have learned a LOT about playing PLO cash games from playchips without ever investing a single cent of my real money roll. Gaining the hand experience for PLO just wouldn't be possible without putting a lot at risk in the early goings with a real money roll.
In my experience, it can also be a good tool at the upper levels to begin assigning labels to different types of players, and to begin to assign ranges to them and to think what level of poker they are playing (level 1 - I know what I hold, level 2 - I think about what villain holds, level 3 - I think about what villain thinks I hold, etc.) Yes, the percentage of pure maniacs and poor fundamental poker players even at the highest levels of playchips still is likely higher than the real money micros, but you also encounter some players who can actually think and apply levels 2 and 3. At the higher levels, you WILL be able to see the difference between the maniacs, the nits, and the strong players and begin to assign ranges to their hands.
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As for practical advice for Darkassassin on getting enough playchips to get out of the low limit gutter of playchipdom...
I would recommend going through the full tilt poker SNG steps tourneys to get started. Buy a whole bunch of level 1 300 playchip tickets for the SNG steps, and just sit out the entire time. More than likely, about half of the tourneys you will win a ticket to level 2 without ever touching a button, and you will almost NEVER lose a ticket by placing worse than 4th. The same is true with level 2. Once you get a fair number of level 2 tickets, just buy a bunch, sit them out, and watch your level 3 tickets accumulate. Once you have about 10 or so level 3 tickets from doing basically nothing, it is time to play strict ABC poker, like you would read out of a basic SNG strategy. Do this, and more than likely one out of the ten tickets you hold will make it to the step 7 money, and then you have 100,000+ playchips to get going with.
You can then continue the step system to accumulate a deeper roll to experiment with the playcash games with, or start sitting into the cash games.
The step system basically involves no risk to your bankroll, so if you find the level of play that your bankroll supports to be too sloppy, just keep doing the steps system until you can reach the 300/600 blind levels of NL holdem or higher. To be appropriately rolled for 300/600, you would need about 1.2 million in chips. For NLHE, depending on the table I'd say you can start encountering somewhat reasonable players at the 1000/2000 blind levels.
