Hi Everyone. Based on feedback and requests I have begun work on the System Messages solution. This feature allows Farm and Site Collection Administrators to set either Farm-wide or Site Collection specific banner messages. The solution leverages the native SP.UI.Status API to render the banners. The messages can have one of four priority types: Low (Green), Medium (Blue), High (Yellow) and Critical (Red). The messages can include HTML markup like anchor tags so you can link to other pages within the banner. Farm and Site collection messages can co-exist and will default to the highest priority for display purposes. Site collection admins can edit the System Messages from the Site Collection Administration settings and Farm admins can set farm-wide messages from Central Administration.

Some screenshots:

Set/Change Farm Message in Central Administration

The System Message Settings Page

A medium level message on a blank site

A Site and Farm message visible at the same time. The Farm message has the higher priority.

Looking to release the solution by the weekend. Pricing will run $20 per farm. A 15 day evaluation version will be available. The solution will be ported to both 2007 and 2013 in the near future. Thanks for the comments and feedback. I hope you will find this solution useful.