> I'm sure I'm sitting on the wrong side of countless user studies that say to the contrary

This is completely off topic, but I was a UX study participant last year, it was an interesting experience. They told me to do as I usually do when surfing the web, and to verbalize my thought process.

I opened the website, and a huge nonmodal advertisement to win some $15 piece of garbage pops up. On pure instinct I click ctrl-w to close the tab, and state "what an obnoxious advertisement, I am boycotting this site".

It went downhill from there.