BTW Tim,

I agree that we have to accept a level of advertising in return for a free site. What I just can't grasp is why these marketeers don't understand that pop-up ads mostly aggrevate people, giving them the opposite effect of the ad's intention. People don't like to get things forced down their throat, if they are interested they will click on a banner add when they are ready for it.

Sure, it is true that banner or sidebar ads hardly register on my peripheral vision anymore, whereas pop-ups are hard to escape. But I am still more likely to get interested by a non-obtrusive banner ad than those annoying pop-ups. Feed me one, and you lost my business by default.