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It does seem kinda vain to think that we're the only populated planet in the universe, but it seems highly unlikely that we'll ever see any evidence to the contrary.

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Just how confident do you feel about this statement? I think you underestimate just how awesomely unpredictable the effects of advances in science and technology tend to be.

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Our own advances in science would seem to indicate it's very unlikely aliens have ever visited Earth.

For this to have happened, basic life must have evolved on another planet. Then it must have survived, and evolved into "intelligent" life. That life must then go through accumulating the massive amount of knowledge and technology necessary for light-speed space travel. It would then need to actually TRAVEL here, which would take a varying degrees of time depending on galaxy of origin -- but even within the Milky Way, it'd be a long trip. That's assuming they had a reason to come to Earth first, which they wouldn't as they'd have no way of knowing life existed here.

It seems to me that the barrier of traveling at light-speed alone almost ensures we have not been visited.

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That seems like an odd statement to me. There was very little in the way of changes from the year 0 to, oh about 1900. Other than a few things like gunpowder, and such. And then about 60 years after we stop plowing fields with horses, we are on the moon. I contend something had to have happened, I have no idea what it is though. I think that we are geometrically improving scientifcally, rather than the linear progression we were on until the early 20 century. But, this is just my random thought while stoned.