The highest I've DMed was 14. The end levels were kind of rushed, though.
The highest I've played was 7. I'd say 8, but our characters leveled up after the final battle, and we never used them again.
EDIT: In regards to the Deities and Demigods thing, no. However... A friend of mine created a system in which all the players played as gods in creating a new world. It was used to... well, create a new world in which the game could be played. Isle of Legacy, it was called. We actually created 3 different functional worlds with it. Alas, though, nobody liked them enough to actually play in any of them.