After reading a million posts, I found a post somewhere (I think on this site, but not sure) which gave very clear instructions on how to move the DNN install to the root of your deluxe hosted site. I copied the steps and it worked perfect! Yes, you can eliminate the subdirectory, look like a real web site, and set up any other domains that you host as portals, also without any subdirectory in the URL. It's not hard, folks, and I'm staying up late to share because i'm happy to give a little something back if it can help others. Once you move the site, you can point all your domains to your root, and just indicate your domains in the portal's HTTP alias. No need to re-install & no more redirects. A million thanks to whoever posted the basic steps. I'm adding some detail that I hope is helpful for the benefit of ALL THE POSTS complaining about this, because this fix really works. GoDaddy doesn't support install at the root by default, but moving it after the fact is not hard. Here are the steps.
1) Check that the Root and DNN directories have the same permissions. You might need to adjust through IIS Settings or File Manager(I didn't). Check the bottom of this page for good advice on security: http://www.northernstarsolutions.com//tabid/61/Default.aspx.
2) Backup both your DNN web installation and your database (in database section, click the pencil to edit, then the Backup icon at the top)
3) Create an html file called app_offline.htm into the DNN directory, taking the site offline.
4) Update your site's existing portal alias record in the database (the HTTPAlias column of the dnn_PortalAlias table) from (example) mysite.com/dnn to simply mysite.com. This is the only slightly advanced step. From the GD control panel, go to databases/SQL Server/Open Manager. Enter your DB username & pass (user is like tri + 12 #s). Once you connect, go to Query Analyzer, and execute this(omitting quotes) "select * from dnn_PortalAlias" This shows you all your aliases for any portals you have. So, if your main site has portal ID of 0, and your current alias is mydomain.com/dnn, you would update it to mydomain.com by executing this:
UPDATE dnn_PortalAlias
SET HTTPAlias = mydomain.com
WHERE PortalAliasID = '0'
5) Now move the contents of the current DNN folder into the root. Easiest way is to FTP it back home, then up into the root. It takes a little while, but just sit back and think how happy you are gonna be soon. Google's gonna see you as a real site!! :-)
6) Update any references you might have in your web.config file to your old site path.
7) Remove the app_offline.htm file and point a browser at the default.aspx file.
8) Have fun with a real DNN install on GoDaddy!!