is there a way to have dired operate in a single window so that when I traverse through directories I don't have n number of dired buffers for the intermediate directories? However - if I start another dired buffer in a completely separate directory (from the minibuffer rather than hitting [enter] on a subdirectory in an already open dired instance) I'd like to retain the two separate dired buffers... I guess I'm using ido-dired since I have ido-mode on but I don't know that the solution would be different? Thanks much!
I reduce the dired-buffer clutter by hitting a (dired-find-alternate-file) on subdirectories, rather than RET; that recycles the current dired window.