Lestat,
The top banner should be invisible to Plats when you turn off the feature. The one below it was added a couple of years after the feature was made and never outfitted with an OFF switch.
I think there is a way for you to turn OFF that banner right from your browser. By disallowing images from our Ad Software...
I wish I could tell you there is a solution on the way. And there is, but not until we upgrade the whole forum to vBulletin 4.0 ...
EF Frank has been out with a family issue. I'll send you a K message about it, I don;t want to put his business on the forum.
Please write me a note I can take to GS about this issue. Since nobody else had complaint before, we never even knew it bothered anybody. We figured the Ads and images from Banner software were blocked by peep's firewalls like most of us do.