>If you had an area of the form that had to change depending on what the user selected in another area (The area could show customer lookup fields, it could show inventory tracking fields, it could show a list of reports to pic, etc...), would you make each one a custom control, put them all in that area of the form and just make one visible as needed? Or is there a better technique for that?

If not to big, I prefer to use frames and play with there visible properties.

Using VB6, if you build custom controls, you don't need to hide them all on a form. You can add them dynamically to the form.