Dear Venkat
I can see that every one has an objection on word "Normally" so what do you mean by that. Please clarify.
What I can understand is that you want to know that Ideally (or the sufficient quantity of charac and value fields) what should be the quantum of characteristics and value fields? Right?
If yes, Dear friend it all depends on the reporting requirement of client. How he wants to see the data.
Basically you will be aware that Characteristics are the dimensions from which you want to see your reports and value fields are mapped to capture the financial data to give the reports for chosen dimensions. So it all depends on the requirement. No one can suggest you the quantity of those masters to use. Practically the clients are sometimes not able to give the correct dimensions and later they demand for more (Ye Dil Maange More
)
So please take clients requirement clearly and decide.
Regards
Rajneesh Saxena