Yesterday I popped onto Drudge and had to click away. The top ad banner was strobing like crazy...it hurt just to look at it.
And the advertisers just don't seem to get it when it comes to repeatedly hitting people over the head with commercials. The caveman ads you refer to are the ones from Geico right? Their entire campaign has been going downhill since they made that gecko talk in my opinion.
Whenever possible I record or time-shift shows on DVR just to be able to speed through the commercials. Even the mute button on live shows provides little relief when interminable commercials and inane promotions are repeated every few minutes.