C'mon. It's not a big deal to click "hide". And if "hide" were the default, many newbies wouldn't know it existed.
Clicking hide infobox is not an inconvenience. It's greatly appreciated by this freeb. When going to a new board, I open the board, go to a different tab while the new board is loading (all 32 pages of infocrap) and go back and click 'hide'. I never see the infocrap if I don't want to.
It's just what technique one uses. but the great thing is, Ihub gives me the option to hide it AND stickies.
Now if Ihub would remove old stupid news ads that are months old.