Thanks for the suggestion. Many people do find the photo uploads and comments useful and would not be happy with us if we removed them. To them, this information is important. If information is being pushed down, you can click "more" to see the activity that has been pushed down. We could also introduce a feature where you could see an even more expanded view of Recent Activity. Would that help?
I think that is a good idea, too. Perhaps there could be one column for just photo comments or something like that.