[tacticalogic]

Lots of them try to avoid that expense as long as possible.

I believe that. But at some point the network becomes unmanageable without it, and they probably hit the "break-even" point well before that.

[Spktyr]

Well, in my field experience, it *usually* starts going weird around 75 units or so, and anything over 100 units is for all intents and purposes practically unworkable.

But it IS possible to have a fully functioning 100-unit Windows network without domain controllers and such and have no issues or problems.