Its a gamble really for me with steel bands. Sucks
Same here, but some bracelets have more adjustability than others, too. This is the sacrifice that was made for Apple's super-easy pushbutton links, and not every bracelet manufacturer has included good adjustability in their more-standard bracelets, either.
Some would have half-links, which usually measure as "2/3rds links". My Citizen's bracelet is like this. Let's say a standard link is 6 mm (to keep the math simple); the half-link would actually be 4 mm. You could use combinations with two "half" links to get increments of 2 mm: 2 whole links = 12 mm; 1 whole + 1 half = 10mm; 2 half links = 8 mm; 1 whole = 6 mm (naturally).
Many bracelets, like my Seiko's, include micro-adjust pin holes in their clasps. These are about 2-3 mm apart and help fill the gap between full link sizes.
If I'm not going to get Apple's bracelet, I wouldn't get a third-party bracelet that didn't have some microadjust capacity, either.