I've looked at cool components, also Active Thermal Management and also toyed with using some laptop coolers. To your point CC and ATM are pricey, and laptop coolers are next to useless, so I decided to DIY it. If you don't want to spend the scratch, it's pretty easy.

I wired up 4 80mm 12v fans in parallel to a 9v wall wart (I've used 6v too). 9v makes the fans run a little slower and quieter, you just need to be sure the combined amp draw for the fans is less than the amp rating on the wart (each is 160mA, so the wart needs to provide >640mA - mine is 800).

I mounted them to the inside of my cabinet's plywood back (actually one to each side), and the wall warts stick out the back and plug into the delayed outlets on my line conditioner so they turn on whenever I power up my system.

The fans I bought at Frys, I think a 6-pack for $5, and the wall warts were recycles, but you can buy them at Parts Express.

I would warn that, if you're not totally comfy with working with electrical, this probably isn't for you. Mistakes can be expensive!

I can take some pics and post if you want to see the results.