This is pretty easily solved with my current setup. I have a "Following" circle filled with prominent developers or tech celebs whose posts I find interesting.

This is pretty easily solved with my current setup. I have a "Following" circle filled with prominent developers or tech celebs whose posts I find interesting. There are a few with the firehose problem, where either they post constantly or have way too many people commenting on their posts. When browsing G+, I typically just hang-out in my Friends, Family, or Acquaintances streams. If I comment on a firehose post and don't want to see notifications about it anymore, I just mute the post. I could definitely see the advantage in them adding the ability to mute a circle from the master stream.