DAM,
Well, I don't have a problem with ads. Like someone earlier mentioned, ads are good. They allow places like this to exist. There has to be a line, I feel, between not too many and too many.
Regularly, when I load AnandTech, it takes several seconds, and sometimes up to four of the five banners are exactly the same. Like I said in my first post, when I loaded the site last night, in the "Site News" section at the bottom, there was one news update and two banners. They were also exactly the same banners. That does not provide a very enjoyable browsing experience. Would you watch a two hour television show if one hour and 20 minutes of it was a commercial? I think not.
I'm starting to rant, and I don't want to do that, so I will end with this: AnandTech has good content, but it's being overshadowed by the banners. As for ad filtering programs, I don't mind ads, and I think they are a good thing, if not overdone. They ad color/flash to a site, they allow sites like this exist, but they can also detract from it greatly.