I have found
the headaches involved in not using Flash greater than the headaches in
using it.

Here are two methods:

1: Use a separate, flash enabled browser, for the sites that MUST have
flash. Use your regular browser for the rest, with flash yanked out by
the viscera. (animations and sounds disabled too). Much calmer and
safer web experience.

2: Figure out how to disable Flash for your favorite browser. For IE,
(depending on the version), rename ALL instances of the file
"swflash.osx" or "flash8b.osx" or "flash.osx" (or maybe a few others).
You can do so by adding your initials to the extension, i.e.
flash.osx.jfh or something. Instead of the flash animation, you'll get
a "get flash" button, which you can ignore. Put a text file called
(say) flash8b.jfh.txt in the same directory, so that you remember what
you did and why. Then when you want to see a flash-dependent site,
rename ONE of the ...flash... files back to its original name. Don't
forget to kill it again when you're done!

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.