Taxonomy and menus, what am I doing wrong?

I recently switched my site over from WordPress to Drupal 6.14.

http://tieconsultant.com

I created a content type for tie listings, with the following Content Taxonomy fields:
field_label (for the tie maker)
field_style (for the tie style)
field_material (for the tie material)
field_origin (for the country of origin)
field_cost (for the tie cost range)

I list ties that I find online for sale, and fill out the stuff above for each one. I have an associated vocabulary for each field, with terms added manually (there aren't too many terms per vocabulary, so I thought it would be easiest to use select fields when I'm creating a new tie content type). I realize that the taxonomy info can be dealt with separately, but I used Content Taxonomy fields because I want to enter the information only once.

I want a menu for the vocabulary terms (sorted by Cost, Label, Style, Material, Origin) so that users can click on Drakes London (for example) to show only ties by Drakes London. Or click on $50-100 to show only ties in that range. Nothing groundbreaking here.

I want to show how many items per term ( Drakes London (3) if I have 3 of their ties), and I don't want to show empty terms.

I have the latest versions of the following modules enabled:
cck
contemplate
context_taxonomy
taxonomy_blocks
taxonomy_manager
taxonomy_menu
views

I have come close using a combination of these modules, but right now I've put it all aside. I've linked the vocabularies to menus, and the menus to blocks. I've used taxonomy_blocks. I've played with views (admittedly I'm not an expert). Just can't get it.

I know there must be an elegant way to accomplish this! I am to the point where I'm certain there is something simple I've overlooking.

Thanks in advance!