How High Is Too High—For Your Heels?

We all have our limits when it comes to the height of our heels. I'm prone to wearing more extreme shoes, I suppose, because I've been short since forever. I stopped growing when I was 13—my mom blames it on me becoming vegetarian at that age—and in order to not seem too midget-y, I took to wearing heels early on. I'm only five feet tall without shoes on, so my feet have adapted to wearing unreasonably high heels over time, even though they often make my friends cringe. My highest pair of heels maxes out at around five inches and they're perfectly comfortable, because I've learned that it's often not the heel height that makes shoes suck, but the slope of the arch that creates the most pain. Too extreme an arch and your foot will constantly be sliding forward into the toe of your shoe. That's why I love a shoe with a small platform on it—it helps soften the slope and makes the shoe infinitely more wearable. But everybody's different. I have friends who can't bear to walk in anything but flats. Others that wouldn't be caught dead without their stilettos on. So tell us: What's your take on high heels? How high is too high and what's just right for your feet?