After looking over the forums I found where brands was moved to attributes - but I also see that other than CSS there is no way to hide a brand. The problem lies in when we get a manufacturers EDS file and import their product line, those products sit in the backend until one of our staff can start working on the details for those items. Being forward thinkers, we always try to get the brand setup in the admin attribute as soon as the file is imported so that step of assigning it to the brand later does not get overlooked. But in doing so we end up with a visual link on our brands page. While the CSS trick can work, with our 5 product divisions we will usually have 5 guys importing files from 1 to 4 brands each at any given time. It would be nice if there was a switch on the admin side to hide until ready.

I recently ran into a need to hide a brand, but not wanting to delete it.
This would be a good one for the suggestions forum.
The ability to restrict by login level, or disable - Much like categories.

David