Chris asks for any anologies for explaining the concept of SPS areas to customers. I use the following in my courses:I show students my desktop of Windows XP. That is an area! What do you have on this desktop? Aha.. shortcuts to content (either folders or resources such as documents) that is available somewhere on my file system I want to access very quickly. Well, you have the same thing in an area. But we name them differently, they are called listings in SharePoint. But the goal is the same! We allow our SharePoint users to go quickly to the content distributed in the various team sites (or any other sites) available. But what else can you have on the desktop? Aha! I can store my documents directly on the desktop and yes I can created folders. Well, again, the same thing in an area. You can have Web Parts, libraries and lists on the areas directly. Remember that an area is just a specialized team site.
OK now, my wife also uses this laptop and when she logs on, she gets another desktop. One that is targetted and adapted to her needs and wishes. Guess what, you can do the same thing with areas using a combination of audiences and user profiles. Two persons can see the contents of an area in a different way.
The only thing that is different between the desktop and the area concept in SharePoint is that we can have many areas nicely organized in a hierarchical relationship. So, I know that it may not be the perfect explanation but to my experience, it clarifies a lot to starting SharePoint users.