I'm seeing more and more of this every day myself ... driving me nuts ... anyone?

I had this problem too and Mitch was right - I had one module with edit permissions set to all users.

And in one portal I needed this to be the case but still didn't want the mode bar to show - it is confusing to "all user" types.  The only way I found around it was to install the free TRT Control panel from http://www.davebuckner.com/Default.aspx?tabid=56  (Would have made that address a link but the link button crashes in the forums right at the moment)  This allows you to control the visability of the mode bar as well as many other things - like which modules different page edit roles can see in the module drop down.

Mitch - If someone so wanted, could we get rid of the mode bar entirely - maybe in the web.config file somehow?

I also learned why this is a new issue to some - in older versions of DNN the mode bar wouldn't show no matter what if you didn't have page edit permissions which I know was the case in 4.5.5 But somewhere down the line they changed it.

Greg

That wasn't my problem.  My hosting provider sent me the following fix:

We found some information in regards to the issue of the "mode bar" showing, see the link below. We strongly recommend that you try some of the suggestions on this site to see if that may resolve your issue.

http://www.snapsis.com/DNN-Tips-And-Tricks/tabid/560/forumid/12/postid/5485/view/topic/Hide-Mode--View---Edit.aspx

The fix worked!