Having SRM contacts go past Connection 5 would be pretty crazy considering the special rules they use for acquiring gear.
Actually, that seems quite intentional to me. A character can come out of character creation with a Connection 5, Loyalty 2 contact. Connection+Connection+Loyalty gives you 12 dice, which buys 3 hits. You can purchase anything up to Availability 15 (which still only gets 3 hits) by going through that contact. It's also possible to create a Face that has 20 dice - Charisma 9, Negotiation (Bargaining) 6 ( 8 ), Tailored Pheremones 2 (+2), Berwick Suit (+1). A character like that can get anything up to Availability 23.
Company Men is a convention-only series of adventures, that gives a Connection 6 contact. If you are dedicated enough to play all four adventures, and succeed at each one (which is harder than it sounds, particularly with the last two), there is the potential of getting the contact up to Loyalty 4. That's 16 dice, or 4 hits, which gives you access to gear up to Availability 19...as long as it is something in the contact's area of expertise. That seems reasonable for an experienced Missions character. The character I play (lifetime Karma of 95) has nearly 100,000 Nuyen to his name, because I haven't had the ability to purchase the high Availability gear I want. Now, I'm starting to make plans to spend that Nuyen.
On the other hand, he's a Mr. Johnson, so he's probably not going to be getting gear for you.
I'd disagree with that - just look at Juan Xihuitl or Maggie Goldberg, the Mr./Ms. Johnsons listed in the season 5 contacts. Both handouts say the following:
Uses: Jobs, Corporate Information, Gear
In fact, the one exception I've seen is Sarah Silverleaf, and I think her reluctance to provide gear is due to her personality (a manipulative tease)...
