dave-
you can use a roll of screen sized to fit into the gutter or black landscaping perforation pipe cut in half to fit into the gutter.....both of those work ok and will save you money but take some time to install correctly

the systems that you buy do help but they need to be mantained as well, as often the leaves and debris will sit ontop of the gutter guard and still block it up to some extent......

to bad the home show just ended as you could of checked out about ten dozen different systems

the cheapest price to the most acceptable results are the screens....... if ya want the best results available i would recommend buying one of the gutter guardsystem and having a roofer come out to install it rather than having the company install it. i say this for two reasons: the first is price as many of these systems make their money off of the customer on the install more than the product itself... the second reason is that many eaves need extra attention when gutter guards are installed because the leaves sit higher on the roof instead of going into the gutter and this can push water up the roof further causing puddling on the roof itself......

hope this helps a bit....just pm me if ya have any other questions and i can do any installations as well if needed