Also, there’s a new feature that let’s you de-select services - including IE8 (though some are broken and don’t actually remove them (and doesn’t remove all the files, just the .exe), and I beleive IE8 is one of those).
Correct, AFAIK. I think all you can do is keep it from running as the default browser. The rendering and other services are still required within Win7, just as in other versions of Windows. IE is still there, and it's still integrated into the OS (dumb!), but it's not in your face.
MS didn't remove the browser, really. All this talk is just kissing up to the EU requirements, that's all. There's no substance to it.
It would take a complete rewrite of Windows, to make it possible to REALLY totally remove IE from it.