There are a couple of things you can do to minimize the wireframe appearance. You can preview an object's wireframe as a box using the Attributes menu.( the hidden option keeps the object from rendering, on my computer anyway ) Show as box option will show the object as a box outline. The wireframe shadow option ( on the right of scene window ) will help unclutter the scene, by eliminating the wireframe shadows. You can use the wireframe resolution option ( on the right of scene window to ) To minimize the wireframes to 8. Motion: will set object's wireframe resolution as their being moved. Static: will set wireframe resolution when objects are not selected. Selected: will set objects wireframe resolution when their selected. Another thing you can do is make families so different objects can have different color wireframe. This makes it easy to select all the objects that may share the same material, or objects that are common with each other but not grouped together. As already mentioned solo mode works wonders with large cluttered projects.

Stephen Ray