as an aside, for the last portion of my campaign i actually stopped giving my players xp, i just announced when the characters had gained a level at appropriate points. This allowed me to time level progression with the big scenes in the campaign without having to worry about whether there was too much or too little actual combat. I was actually surprised how well it worked, and my players never raised any issues with not getting running totals of xp, all in all it was quite liberating.
