gnome without evolution?

["Monique Y. Herman" <spam@bounceswoosh.org>]

I installed the gnome package on my machine.  This sucked in a bunch of
packages, including evolution.

I like evolution, but I have zero use for it on this machine, and it's
huge.  Unfortunately, if I try to remove it, aptitude whines and cries
and "fixes" things in the name of gnome.

I guess gnome requires one of two email clients, evolution or balsa, to
be installed.  I guess this is to force a fully usable desktop
environment.

So, assuming this dependence isn't a bug, and so isn't going to change
any time soon ...

What are the drawbacks of just uninstalling the gnome package and
keeping the packages on which it depends (except for evolution and
certain others)?

-- 
monique