This'll be my stomping ground obviously. Barfly is trading on it's name a bit but they ared also putting on lot's of unadvertised, not for sale to the general public gigs. John Kennedy's nights are still worthy of a vist, as are levi's branded ones to watch nights.
Bugbear Discs, the store next to Dublin Castle, I gave no hope to but it's actually a good little store. You won't find too much in there that you can't get elsewhere but I end up spending a few quid in there each visit and the guy who runs it used to run the rough trade store in covent graden back in the day.
Ballroom has been threatened with this for a while and the regentrification of the place has been happening quite rapidly to be honest, gilgamesh, the new property on the canal and the lock side Starbucks all such examples. It's always going to happen though if it's more lucrative to have big name stores then they will invariably arrive, the campaign to save the stables market is in full swing, though I'm not sure that having Danny McNamara in charge of booking the main music venue in it is going to get your die-hard indie fan on board.
