Hey Dannedude,
The best way to deal with this issue is to:
- Make sure you are using a child theme so changes you make to the header.php file won't get overwritten should the theme receive an update. And,
- Create a new header.php file in your child theme folder (just create a copy from the parent theme) and then replace whatever code you find between the title tags in the head section. Like this:
<title><?php whatever code you find in your existing theme ?></title>Replace that with:
<title><?php wp_title(''); ?></title>
If you have a specific requirement for a separator character, just place that character between the two ticks inside the parenthesis. Like this:
wp_title('|');
This is what I have to do on most of the sites which I install WordPress SEO. But I feel it's worth it because it gives me control over those SEO aspects and takes it out of the realm of the theme.
Hope that helps.
Cheers :)