>A dangerous precedent. Just because you don't use it, doesn't mean some application you install doesn't use it.

Not as dangerous for me, as I know which apps do. They leave a cookie, they stumble upon some javascript (because I haven't even bothered to go through elementary setup to allow it even locally in IE), they have an IE-like rightclick menu. Anything that uses the browser object basically uses IE, and a surprisingly many do - some scanner utilities, installers with multiple components to install (although recently they rather go for Flash). But IE on default is outright paranoid (security through annoyance) and pretty much nothing works in it but the most basic websites.