I've talked about it on here before, but when I started looking for gyms here in my town I decided to go with planet fitness, I had heard they weren't the best gym but they were really cheap compared to some of the other ones so I went in for the free tour. Like you said- no squat rack, no bench, almost ZERO free weights and there were people doing dead lifts on a smith machine. I quickly left and shelled out the extra cash for the small local gym alternative. The only good thing I can say about them is that they had this really nice water massage table they let me try. You have to buy the "premium package" to use it though.