Agree with making your own chili powder. Also make my own tomato powder. Talk about intense flavor.
But heartily disagree with not adding tomatoes in chili. That's like saying no tomatoes in bar-b-q sauce! Heathenish!
As for the tomato used - there is no "best" unless it is homegrown vs. store bought. If using store-bought tomatoes yeah, you might as well leave them out.
On second thought Romas are as bad as store-bought too. A really good one is Indian Stripe as its smokey flavor adds another dimension to the chili flavor.
Dave