^I guess my point was that I didn't know why silver/chapel is in consideration, as it doesn't give any benefits over potion/chapel in the situation where you are more interested in getting familiar than getting $5. So there's not even really a question of variance. Sure it may have less variance, since the chance of getting turn 3-4 familiar is always 0, but that's not the kind of lower variance that helps anyone...
Regarding chapel/potion vs no chapel, I'm pretty sure chapel wins by a landslide. The early chapel will trim your deck so you buy and play more familiars faster so you'll come out *at least* even in curses, if not ahead, *plus* you can trash some of the curses. Chapel/silver already beats silver/silver for witch games, and the advantage gets bigger for familiar, where you're more than happy to buy lots of them.