Jed,
I have a few suggestions for you.
First, go to System Preferences, type SP quickly to take you to the
Speech pane, then set a hot key for Speak Selected Text and quit
System Preferences (Command-q).
When you find a web page that gives you trouble, position yourself on
"HTML Content" without interacting with it, and press command-a to
"Select All", then press the hot key you set in System Preferences and
the System Voice will read the page to you. In this way, you'll have a
good idea what's on the page.
You might find it useful to explore your Safari preferences, too.
To do this, when in Safari, press command-comma to open Safari
Preferences. If you're using Leopard, interact with the Toolbar to
select the various tabs in turn. Stop interacting with the Toolbar to
examine the choices offered in each Tab. Explore and see what you find.
You should also examine all the possibilities available to you in the
VoiceOver Utility. Press Control-Option-F8 to open it, then, if you're
using Leopard, Interact with the "Utility Categories" table on the
left. Examine the choices offered by each category in turn by stopping
interacting when you hear the name of the category you wish to explore.
In this way, you can customise VO to suit your own taste.
Cheers,
Anne
