Most of the crap wouldn't be so bad, only most ad-supported pages block on the main content until the adverts are loaded. And, personally, if it takes longer to load the ads than the content then I quickly read the content, ignore the ads more than ever, and mentally blacklist the site for a while.

This can be annoying in and of itself but it becomes worse if you're on a bad connection or if, perish the thought, the ad-server slows down.
I've had these before. In one case, the link was s slow somewhere on the chain that it took a couple of minutes to get as far as the logon page for one site so I could access the ad-free version.

And then we have the sites which put an advert in before the content, or who split the articles into multiple (ad-supported) pages.

If the companies really want to protect their revenue stream then they need to make sure that aforementioned stream (the adverts) doesn't get seen as "crap" by readers. Relevance and not slowing the site to a crawl would help. Yes, some of us out here will dislike advertising on principle, but it will help in the public view if the adverts don't make it hard to get to the content that people go there for in the first place. Making reading the articles feel like effort really isn't a good buiness plan, surely?

This is my main issue with the Ribbon. Not the existance of the Ribbon itself, but that it is the only interface available in Office 2007. And even worse, the only plugins to restore the old-style menus and toolbars are third-party.

I can see that they wanted to make an interface that's meant to be more intuitive to new users. I can even see how it may well accomplish that - I've heard anecdotal evidence on both sides.
What really bugs me is that for those of us who have years or experience using the more traditional-looking interface and can skim the menus quickly, or for those people who learn one way of doing things and get completely flummoxed by a change in interface, Microsoft have decreed no official way of working the way you're used to. Not even an official Microsoft plugin.

The problem in that case, though, is that the UK release - being a part of the European release - cannot (or at least often is not) be released until all the other European languages are done. Even though the game's already been translated to (or released in) English.

When it's a game you've been waiting for since before even the American (or Japanese) release, it just feels like a massive insult. But then they wonder why people import or flat out download the games. Once it's in English, English-speaking gamers are ready to play it.
If there was a confirmed date it would proably be better. But when the game's been out Stateside for months before there's even a confirmed UK/European release date, no wonder people lose patience.

The worst thing about this lack is that it would help in the case of corporate environments, which Microsoft seem so keen on. Yet they still don't include it.
(OK, from the sounds of it Vista's UAC acts similarly - only without the Grace Period which allows a string of admin tasks to be done without having to authorise every single action.)

Currently the annoying thing about tech-support is when a user needs something doing which is, in and of itself, only about a 2-minute task. But it then requires either logging off and back in as an admin, or promoting their accounts and re-logging in for when admin-level user-side things need doing.
So a showstopping issue with a quick-fix often ends up taking far too long because Windows (XP) doesn't play well with certain software - even using RunAs.