What are options for super volatile tables?
In my experience, Sql Server sometimes wants to scan small tables (even when they have indexes that you'd think would be used) which can lead to deadlocks on a hot table.  

It might be a kludge solution, but I've had tables like this and was able to solve my problem by actually adding lots of 'bogus' rows to 'widen' the table and force Sql Server (optimizer) to seek instead of scan.  I've also had to resort to using the ROWLOCK hint to get around the deadlock problem (your mileage may vary)