Hi Straydog,
So many users so many preferences.
Go and learn from some of the postings of Lifehacker on tweaking avast! av solution more to your personal liking, e.g. http://lifehacker.com/how-to-disable-avasts-annoying-sounds-and-popups-1530732542
Some of these tweaking tips are not officially supported by avast (understandably so) and I for instance could not go without shields protection and the software updater. I would personally refuse to opt in for Grimefighter and also not always agree with some of the browser clean-up decisions, while I was glad some insecure chrome add-ons were pointed out so I could uninstall.
One thing and good advice and not only for avast! dummies is to - always choose the custom installation.
Agree with NoelC it seems the marketing guys and gals came to decide more and more where avast! was set out to be going, but they should not ignore the user experience feedback on the product completely. That would not be a wise decision, not even for avast! fanboys like we.
polonus