[frankdux]

After a little more digging I realized that quantity changes in the dropdown selectbox are tied to inventory levels. Since I have disable inventory on this site, I decided to just go the route of replacing the dropdown select with a text input field. Here is what I did in case anyone else has this need:

I took this code in product.tpl:

<SELECT id="product_avail" name="amount"{if $active_modules.Product_Options ne '' && $product_options ne ''} onchange="check_options();"{/if}>
	{section name=quantity loop=$mq start=$start_quantity}
	<OPTION value="{%quantity.index%}" {if $smarty.get.quantity eq %quantity.index%}selected{/if}>{%quantity.index%}</OPTION>
	{/section}
</SELECT>

and replaced it with this:

<input type="text" name="amount" size="3">
{* hide dropdown selectbox 
<SELECT id="product_avail" name="amount"{if $active_modules.Product_Options ne '' && $product_options ne ''} onchange="check_options();"{/if}>
	{section name=quantity loop=$mq start=$start_quantity}
	<OPTION value="{%quantity.index%}" {if $smarty.get.quantity eq %quantity.index%}selected{/if}>{%quantity.index%}</OPTION>
	{/section}
</SELECT>
  *}

Basically I just added a text input fieLd with the same name as the selectbox, "amount". Then I just commented out the select in case I ever want to use it again.