How to remove an element from the flow?

One trick that makes position:absolute more palatable to me is to make its parent position:relative. Then the child will be 'absolute' relative to the position of the parent.

jsFiddle

None?

I mean, other than removing it from the layout entirely with display: none, I'm pretty sure that's it.

Are you facing a particular situation in which position: absolute is not a viable solution?

Another option is to set height: 0; overflow: visible; to an element, though it won't be really outside the flow and therefore may break margin collapsing.

There's display: none, but I think that might be a bit more than what you're looking for.