One of the challenges that I faced when I decided that I wanted to play ALL six strings in EVERY chord I played was that I don't have long fingers or a lot of "bendability" in my fingers. I do have insatiable curiosity though, and over countless nights playing in bars I had lots of time to experiment. I discovered that lots of positions that seemed "impossible" at first required "wrist flexibility" rather than long fingers. My left hand position is constantly changing from "classical" to "clutch and grab". I've gotten used to almost always playing adjacent strings on the same fret with one rather than two fingers. Once it again, it becomes a "touch" thing as opposed to having "wide" fingers. Most folks watching my chording hand have no idea what chords I'm playing (at least visually) but I'm using what I see as a very "logical" approach, even though to say it's unorthodox may be an understatement.

From a teaching point of view, I'll stick to either a standard "classical-like" chord approach, or a "Travis approach" if the person has a narrow neck and country-blues aspirations. Someone like Mudcatter Michael K. (another with average size hands) WANTED to go in the "extreme" direction, so I've been giving him the "Full Monty" as far as chords that can be used to play melody, rhythm, and bass line simultaneously. The right hand style (usually thumb and two fingers) employs several variations of "pattern picking", independant thumbing, various "pinches", index/thumb single note runs, and "clutch chords. Michael is undoubtedly a quick study, but being like myself, self-employed, has a fair amount of time to sit around and pick. Believe me that extra "playing time" is a huge factor.

Rick