It would seem that there are approximately as many solutions to this problem as there are users that want this problem solved. An interesting state of affairs. In some ways, I'm sorry I asked and then answered my own question, but maybe this will help someone else (or provide me more fodder when Free Surfer fails miserably for some reason).

Free Surfer does seem to be doing a good job so far, but, honestly, I use IE about 10% of the time, so I'm not the greatest source for a review on this. It seems to work very similarly to Mozilla's [Don't] Open Unrequested Windows option, as the links on this forum, for example, still open in new windows, while ad-type popups have been reduced to zero, so far, in my small sampling.

I can't think of a site that has legitimate unrequested popups. Give me an example and I'll see what Free Surfer does with it.