I have been giving much thought to ASP.NET and Silverlight menus of late. While doing research on existing sites and how they are handling menus, I came across the concept of a "mega menu".
A mega menu is basically a drop down menu that contains many, many options. It provides a user with a quick way to navigate to a particular location on a site. Here is one example:
Hovering over the Technology tab displays a large set of menu options [highlight in blue is mine].
This looks like a very interesting and user-friendly way to provide the user with a large number of choices. And it is DEFINITELY better than lots of fly-out menus. Seems like a good design for eCommerce types of sites where you want your potential customer to quickly find your products.
Check out a set of good mega menu examples here.
This is not to say that every menu should be a mega menu. In fact, I find that most line of business applications (non-eCommerce) require a different approach. Primarily because line of business application often need to perform a set of related tasks and not just find products.
Enjoy!