Unfortunately we have to resort to scripts to improve youtube. Install greasemonkey and sytlish, I recommend firefox. Then install youtube themes and greasemonkey scripts:

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13333
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/9310
and my own script http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/126756

This is the theme or style that i use at the moment, http://userstyles.org/styles/62136/youtube-dark-partial-fixes-cosmic-panda-support

Using the browser addon redirector and a simple redirect of the url you can disable certain parts of youtube. How to force https, disable playlists and make video list default channel page.

You will need the firefox plugin Redirector which is available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/...
Once you have that installed you need to go in to the options of the extension and create the following redirects in this order:

Force Https:
Include: http://www.youtube.com/*
Redirect to: https://www.youtube.com/$1
Pattern type: Wildcard

Disable Playlists:
Include: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=*&list=*
Redirect to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=$1
Pattern type: Wildcard

Make video list default channel page:
Include: https://www.youtube.com/user/*
Exclude: https://www.youtube.com/user/*/*
Redirect to: https://www.youtube.com/user/$1/videos
Pattern type: Wildcard