Yet I still have a paid account, because the thought of lj showing ads on my entries sends me into a panic.

Let me tell you how much FUN it was to have LJ start playing full-screen ads with sound on random entries. I thought I was going nuts, or had a virus, or had pop-ups open that were hiding on my taskbar . . . nope! Just random ads showing up on random tabs when I re-loaded Firefox. CREEPED ME OUT.