Of course, the obvious, Ultimate design (which of course is a lot of work) would be for the user to be able to pick and choose content that they would like to appear in their view.
For example, I go to my user preferences (under my account) and Select under the "Tabs" category "Home", then "Browse Showcases","Search for Providers","Search","Logout". Next time I log on, that's all I see. All the clutter of the Tabs I never use is gone.
Same with Forum views, Under WorldWide, I check "Comedy Central", "Technical Questions", "A Question of Legality". Under San Antonio, I check "Provider Adds", "Weekend Lineup", "Provider Reviews". Next time I log on, that's all I see. Removing the categories I don't use would allow all the categories I do use to be displayed on one page at the same time.
You would also need a Tab or some device called "All" which could take you to the unfiltered view (i.e. Show the site like it is now: all tabs, all forums, etc)
This concept is called a Portal design and these included "pick and chose sub-windows" are called portlets. Around this main Portal window you could still have banner-adds and things that need to appear on every page regardless of your customizations.
Yes, it is a hard project and a lot of work, but in the end it yields a website that is much easier for the user to use and as such, they are more likely to spend longer periods of time on the site (since they don't have to work so hard to get to what they want AND it doesn't take as much time)
I apologize if this topic has already been covered. I used the Search tab and couldn't find anything.
Cheers!