paper cells?

Anyone use the paper chain plant cells for a home garden? Looks like a great idea to me, but I'd only need one flat for my measly garden. Seems like a lot of overhead, but a "sampler" might work. Anyway, not really interested in spending $100s on something I'd use once yearly, but the compressed paper pots I used this year in traditional plant trays didn't work at all. I have clay pots and some plastic pots from the plants I bought to replace those I tried to grow. Direct seeding worked, but transplanting didn't.

https://www.johnnyseeds.com/tools-supplies/transplanters/paper-chain-pots-4%22-spacing-75-count-paperpot-transplanter-accessory-7588.html

I have a friend who runs a small-scale organic farm in Iowa. He says he loves the paper pot system, but it took careful control of a bunch of variables (bed preparation, planting speed, etc) to get good results from it. It didn't sound like something that would be worth the time or $ investment for a home garden.

Other home seed starting options:

I really like soil blocks. I think those come the closest to the paper pot system at a home scale in terms of being able to churn out a lot of small transplants that are super fast to plant out. And no waste!

For bigger starts (like tomatoes), I use folded newspaper pots. I should draw up a diagram for the pattern sometime. They take a little bit of time to fold, but they work great, they're free, zero-waste, and non-toxic (our local printer uses soy-based ink).

I think the only real benefit to the paper cells is for large-scale growers because they can be loaded into those automatic transplanters. I don't think they'd really have any advantages for the home gardener, and there are probably better options for you.  

What kinds of problems were you having with transplanting? I was always taught to transplant in the late afternoon/ evening, be careful not to damage the roots, and water them in well. It's always been very problem-free for me this way.

Is there a reason why small plastic pots or 6-packs wouldn't work well for you?

Another option is toilet-paper and paper-towel rolls. You can cut 2-3 little bottomless cardboard planters from each toilet paper roll, pack them in to support eachother in a tray, and fill with soil. They save a lot of space, compared to larger plastic pots. This can be important if you are starting seeds under lights or something and want to start a lot of seeds in a small amount of space.

You can also make your own paper pots out of newspaper or brown paper bags. I did it before by folding the newspaper around a can of beans as a mold, but for smaller pots you'd have to find a smaller cylinder to use as a mold, like a small piece of pipe or something. It did require a few pieces of tape for me to hold them together, but I'm sure someone handier than I could fold them in such a way that they stay put as they are.

Peat pellets also save space, but of course peat moss is ecologically problematic, and I find peat pellets a real hassle to use anyway.

I've never tried soil blocks. There is some investment there, and a learning curve with getting the soil right, and I have just never been up to the challenge so far.