Opinions Please! Dynamic View Or Same View

We have had a very bad season for tent caterpillars this year! This is an apple tree at a friend's house. The buggers are so thick that they coated a wind chime  and looked like an icky, moving carpet. If my back allowed for gardening I might not want to do it just because these things are so icky!

But the main reason for this post is that I've been thinking about the look of my blog and have some questions that I hope you will take the time to think about.

I would like it to be easier for you, dear readers, to look at the things that you like and ignore the things that are of no interest to you. I've checked out Blogger's Dynamic view templates, and one of them works very well to make finding things that you want to see (knitting, mixed media, photographs) more easy. The problem, and the trade off, with this option is that it does not allow for any widgets, links, blog rolls or extras. I rather like promoting places and people that I enjoy, and I am not sure that I want to lose that capability. Of course, with dynamic views, there is also no customized header allowed.

One person suggested that she found the "pages" bar under my header to be a bit busy - so I moved the pages to the side bar under "Chapters". What do you think?

My questions for you are:

• Does it bother you to have to wade through posts about some topics that might not interest you?

• What do you think of blogs that use dynamic views?

• Does not having widgets and links bother you in any way?

• Do you find my blog to be too busy, and cluttered with links and side bar things?

• Does it bother you that you have to search for things that interest you or would you prefer to see a thumbnail (dynamic view) that will sort the subjects more easily?

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and opinions!