I've been looking into MS ISA server lately and I have discovered that it doesn't have any out of the box mechanism to limit or block objectionable content. It appears you have to go and spend more money on a 3rd party add-on. Does this seem 1. really expensive and 2. really stupid to anyone else.

1. Yes

2. No

ISA is good under certian condition.... not under most.. I myself find it very complicated and not very easy to use...

If by objectionable content, you mean web filtering..... if you plan on staying with ISA, a company called SurfControl makes a web filtering product that integrated with ISA

Otherwise I have had great success with Cisco Pix and WebSense

I didn't know you could use a PIX with WebSense. How does that work?

When the Pix receives a URL request it will look to the WebSense server for authorization or the url's content category. This has to be configured inside the pix.. I cannot remember the commands offhand but there are only 3 of them if i am not mistaking.. it is like url-filter or something of that nature