:ab maker make<CR>
The <CR> should be typed exactly like that. Now I can use :maker to make, and while the shell out window is less than ideal, it flicks by quickly enough as to only be an issue for epileptics. Also, unlike with a redirect to /dev/null, output properly ends up in the quickfix (:copen) window.
All this does is manually hit <enter> for me after a compile.
Vim really needs an option to set which states, "I don't care about information in the output buffer; don't bug me with it."
Here is another (in my opinion less clean) solution:
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Avoiding_the_%22Hit_ENTER_to_continue%22_prompts