When doing an upgrade on a machine with a small HD the installer though it
would be fun to throw in gnome completely including ALL the devel packages
and even gnome-audio-extras

This is BAD. Now a days one can install a kde or even an Anotherlevel
workstation, but the upgrade still forces gnome, causing severe lack of
diskspace.

This really pisses me of afaik people have been complaining about this
since gnome was included.

What is won by standard forcing gnome down people's throat if they upgrade?
I find this the microsoft way.

I actually use gnome, but not on all my machines, gnome is no fun on a 486
with 12 meg and a 360mb HD.

I had gnome-libs installed for gftp and xchat which I use a lott. But there
was no reason to add gnome-core, gnome-games, gnome-audio and the devel
stuff.