SharePoint is my hammer and everything looks like a nail.

<style type="text/css"> .s4-recentchanges { display:none; } </style> The code above, added through the html view of a content editor webpart will remove the "recently modified" list from the left nav of a sharepoint 2010 site.

I come back from vacation and my coworkers are using EasyTabs on all our SharePoint 2010 home pages.  This does an excellent job of quickly and easily creating a tabbed interface for putting lists and libraries on the front page without all that tedious scrolling or content overload. Check it out: http://www.pathtosharepoint.com/pages/easyTabs.aspx