Correct, I have NO static playlists anywhere.
I have several smartlists that filter music on various things, whether that be rating, genre, year by decade, etc.
Smartlists also control what gets sync'd to portable devices, and it's also how UPNP streaming devices access the library, so I have some smartlists that filter songs for certain scenarios.
For example, I have a handful of smartlists that I would use when out by the pool. Basically these filter out and ignore certain genres (don't want talk radio podcasts or Christmas music to play) and BPM (don't want slow songs) and song duration (no short intros or really long songs).
I also use smartlists for other utility functions such as 'find all songs with missing cover art' or 'find all songs with missing tags'.
I never look at a specific song and say, gee, this needs to be included in these 3 playlists. They just end up there by the nature of how I tag the song.
Start with one smartlist that contains all songs.
Then create other smartlists with additional filters, whether that rule be a genre, or rating, or year, etc.
Keep building until you have everything you need covered.
I also use the People field and tag each song with that. Certain music the kids aren't allowed to listen to due to language or subject matter. Those are tagged with only my wife's and my name. Hannah Montana is only tagged with my daughter's name, etc.
Then there are four smartlists that basically say People=zxsix. That shows all artists that I like. People = daughter's name shows only the artists she likes. Some songs are tagged with the name of all four family members.
So when I open my smartlist, I don't see Hannah Montana or any of that old 80's big hair new wave stuff my wife likes
Then additional smartlists start breaking it down from there based on genre or year or rating.