The unstoppable pre-roll ad

Wow, is that disappointing. A 30 second pre-roll ad for acne cream (obviously there's no way to target me, other than the content I was about to watch was juvenile) then a 12 second video clip, followed by 15 seconds of credits and comment overlays with links and suggestions.

I'm never getting that time back.

I'm not sure that I have a problem with the idea of ads in general-- what I don't like is that once I hit play, the ad loads, and there is NO way to stop or pause or mute the ad short of leaving the page.  This is even more difficult if I'm viewing the video within my Google Reader, and never actually visited another page or tab that I can close...   I had to physically hit mute on the computer to

 the sound while waiting patiently to see the terrible 12 second fail.

So here's my question to you-- How would you prefer content providers monetized their content?  Pre-roll? Post-roll? Overlay? Surrounding page space?