Yes, I've put several shelves in our basement area. It's a huge area, relatively speaking anyway, but like you say you have to stack stuff up to take advantage of the space. And this makes it plenty annoying when you have to dig stuff out all the time.
I made a small shelf near the water heater area that isn't very wide, and a full width one for all the chairs and stuff like that to go on. Makes the basement a much more useful area. Of course that translate into more room to carry more stuff. Hmm, quite the two edged sword. :)