I've found that there are LOADS of possible cheap ways to manage patchcable piles. A trip to a home improvement store like Lowe's or Menards offers TONS of potential hooks, implements, and other hanger gibberish that works like a charm. Right now, I've got about 100+ 1/4" cables on these snazzy, rustic iron closethooks from Menards, and in a previous setup of the studio, I had my 3.5mms all on those cheap swinging kitchen towel-holders. And since both of these mount easily onto the MDF racks I use, I can stick 'em wherever they work best.

At least, this worked fine until I started building the AE system, which uses pinwires (along with some Bastl devices and a Folktek Mescaline). So, since I was setting up a section of commercial gridwall with shelves for the stompbox "library", I put one of those angled clotheshangers with the little balls on them onto the backside of the gridwall, under the table that holds the "sandbox", which puts the pinwires right where I need 'em!