You may remember that, several months ago, we (edev) had a discussion regarding collapsible nodelets. A collapsible nodelet is a regular nodelet with a button that allows you to hide or display the nodelet contents. See a working example here. Collapsible nodelets would allow quick access to the nodelets you want, while keep your screen somewhat clean by giving you the ability to quickly hide or show the ones you refer to semi-frequently (without needing to go through User Settings).
If I recall correctly, most everyone liked the idea of collapsible nodelets, but there seemed to be no way to store info regarding which nodelets are collapsed without posting back to the server (not very fast at all). Since no solution appeared to this problem, the idea was pretty much abandoned. Today, however, it suddenly struck me to (duh!) use JavaScript to store data in cookies regarding which nodelets should be collapsed and which should not. I've got a working example running here.