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Table stakes are not lame, although it sounds like the OP is playing a modified table stakes game where everything in your pocket is considered to be on the table.
Consider, if you're not playing table stakes, say you get involved in a big pot and make the absolute nuts on the turn. Its a huge pot already but you're down to a hundred bucks in your pocket. So you borrow four hundred and make it five hundred to go and get a call. After the river you still have the mortal nuts but your opponent bets into you for 8 grand. If you can't borrow eight grand, then you have to fold your mortal nuts. That's supposed to be fun?
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This was the exact situation I was trying to avoid. Fortunately the group finally understood was I was getting at, even if it means emptying your wallet on the table, at least it's in plain sight. As it turned out, most of us bought in for $40 worth of chips and couple of the guys slid a few twenties under their chips (making it clear to all). It worked out well. It seems that table stakes only apply to the PL/NL games though - in guts and booray if you go in on a $100 pot you do have to pay if you lose; no all-in. All-in wouldn't really work in those pot-matching games anyway. We allow all-in for any of the poker games. With limit I would expect you could go to the pocket but it hasn't come up yet - usually someone just turns to the guy next to him and says "I raise - gimme 6 bucks" as he pulls another $20 out. We often have the guy who works at a real bank put a $50 bill and say "ok, I'm 6 in on my $50. Ok now I'm $12 in, I reraise" - it really works fine for limit. We all know each other pretty well so it is generally smooth. So it's still a goofy game but everyone seems to get it and it should continue this way, it is fun as hell.
PL was not hard to play but there is probably little point with Hold 'Em - it was suggested for Omaha H/L to keep players from going all in preflop with just an A2 (AA22/AA2K).
Our game is really awesome. It may warrant another post but I wonder if anyone has ever played Booray (Bourre) before:
http://www.pagat.com/rams/boure.html eh, it's not poker. More like spades for money. But you do draw cards like in 5-card draw (if you have the guts).