Brilliant.... another dev here. 

I was just googling around trying to find a "turn this sh!t off", ran into this joke of a support thread, and I started having the same idea you did (JS-based removal).  I don't have time right now, but I've built a couple browser extensions in the past.  If you're a dev, maybe we could collab on throwing something together that's like:

• figure out if there are other ad types (element ids) or "greedy" features that people hate about the current UX.
• create a browser extension for Google/FF/Edge with a checkbox list of all things to optionally allow or block/remove, submit it to the extension marketplaces
• throw the source up on github so others can collab on it - perhaps besides DOM removals, there might also be opportunity for DOM/feature ads to create UX improvements.