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I would expect to go up to around 200 - 250x for planetary observing.
Anything else, 120 - 150x is plenty (e.g. bright globulars).
Remember that higher magnification darkens the background sky if you're trying to find faint objects and the sky isn't as dark as you'd like.
In the UK a big problem in observing from suburban areas, particularly in winter, is the heat rising from houses causing poor seeing. I'm not sure how much that is an issue here since few people have central heating. But in any urban/suburban location you potentially have sources of heat that may be degrading the seeing in a very localised way, but usually exactly in the direction you want to look!
Returning to eyepiece quality, I found that the GSO eps that came with my scope were pretty poor above around 100x, so I guess it depends whether the issue is quality of location and/or quality of equipment.
Morton
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