With spotlight used to access files, I rarely have to launch finder nowadays. This way, I can have all my stuff on the desktop cluttered as can be, but will always be invisible till I need to find stuff. The rest of the time- Clean & Pretty & unclickable desktop!

Why don't you never start the finder?

While i am in favor of using things like quicksilver (especially with the stacks/hierarchical folders debacle) trying to keep the finder from loading is sort of extreme.

the bad kind of extreme.