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Hi jamie1234:
For me, 'messy' is kind of a relative term. I think in general, larger fish probably produce more visible waste and smaller fish less. Of course, if you have a tank full of smaller fish. . .
That said, I've kept community tanks with shoals/schools of fish like danios, barbs, rasboras, tetras, etc. and usually noticed little visible waste (it's there, of course, in the substrate and on the filter media, just not that visible). I love livebearers but most people would agree that they're messy in that their waste is often visible (and abundant). I keep a lot of corys and brochis, and I wouldn't consider them to be messy.
For cichlids it's hard to say. I have quite a few kribs and I don't consider them particularly messy. When I've kept angels I've had some that seemed a little messier than others.
It's really up to you what you prefer your tank to look like and how you define 'messy.' Since you practice good and regular maintenance then my guess is that you could probably look at other characteristics of the fishes you'd like to keep. I think 'fish mess' is just one of those things we put up with!
