Where do you live?

I personally like UC Verde Buffalo grass, but I'm in central AZ.

I live 25 miles east of Raleigh NC

It depends on your expectations. That recommendation for an inch per week is to keep healthy perennial grasses. Most of the turf grasses can get by on less water, but your going to have a less dense turf. An aggressive seeded common type bermuda grass would be your best bet in a full sun application. If your not giving the bermuda any supplemental water it will probably look pretty bad in dry years and great in wet years provided you give it plenty of food in the summer. This is not going to win you the yard of the year award:) Let crabgrass be your friend and fill in the bare spots in he summer and poa anna in the spring and fall. Also, I have a friend who aerifies his lawn early every spring and late every summer with one of those pull behind aerifiers for a lawn tractor to pull up weed seed and he has the most beautiful crabgrass lawn you have ever seen(although he has to mow it 3 times a week). He does he same thing in August to get the poa anna going. It doesn't get more natural than that.

Here is a picture of bpgreen's natural pasture grass lawn in Salt Lake City.

{{gwi:79340}}

That is a mixture of wheatgrasses adapted to his area, blue grama, and strawberry clover. He starts deep watering about June and fertilizes once per year (I think I have that right). And mows once a month. It looks like a lawn to me. Check on the Internet for wheatgrasses and other pasture grasses which grow in your area. Mix up a blend of seed, and cast away.