Create content within the site instead of the Drupal modal popup? I have a content-type "client-request" and I would the form to be displayed within the site (inside the banner and sidebar) when the user clicks new request instead of opening up in the Drupal modal popup. 

Is this do-able?
It is, but you'll need a bit of jQuery:

(function($) {
  $(function() {
    $('a[href="/node/add/client-request"]').addClass('overlay-exclude');
  });
})(jQuery);


That will add the overlay-exclude class to any link that goes to the node add form for your content type; all this is does is force the overlay to close when the link is clicked, and forward you on to the right page. It'll also stop any links on non-overlay pages from invoking the overlay for that path.