Question:
Does anyone know if there is there a way to total in the views (so that we can see totals (in opportunities especially) without having to run reports?

Answer:
If you are using CRM V3, you can use the Live Excel feature to sum your total easily.

Here are the steps,
1. Hit export data to excel
2. Pick dynamic worksheet.
3. Save the excel file.
4. Open and modify the excel file to add a total field.

You can keep this excel file locally on your machine, or upload it to server so that everybody can see it. Note, since it contains live data, everybody can only see their own data. There is no security issue even when you upload the excel file to CRM server to share with everybody.