Welll I would say that the only reason that you have as much desktop as you do is because nautilus is running your desktop under Xubuntu.
It is an interesting setup.
When removing packages is a good idea to check what package they actualy are. Most of the packages removed are part of meta packages. Remove one and remove the rest.
There is a way to circumvent this problem. It should not be used lightly as it changes the state of all your packages to "manual". All related installed as depends, like all package installed with a meta package have a state of "auto". So to dpkg this is a big change.
Would probably be best if all your package management chores were done with aptitude also as it is an aptitude tool that does the job, I think, the best.
One reason is that aptitude has two great query commands; why and why-not
Why is used to find out why a package is installed or if it can be installed. Why-not is handy when you are told a package can't be installed or, better, can be installed but you entire desktop will be removed.
That last is usually a conflict with some package installed by the desktop meta package and that package will be removed if you install the package you want. If the conflict is with just one package then the obvious thing to do is remove just that package.
To do that you need to basically dismantal the meta package. This is done with the command;
This doesn't remove the meta package. It doesn't remove anything. It changes the state of the packages to manual. You cam remove any of those packages then.
As the install script of a .deb is consulted in removing as well as installing actual real depends will still remove the real package that depends on them. Meta packages have no content and thus no real depends. Their depends are just writen on the install script as packages to be installed so the meta package will "work". There is not mention of the meta package in those packages such as in the reverse depends list.
Therefore that command is just used to break meta packages.
If you get carried away from the joy of discovering this gem things can get sticky. Installing another meta package and then breaking it and removing something, rince and repeat, a few times and you may get, if you use aptitude and apt-get together (which really can be done safely since Wheezy was released by Debian although there is still "friction" if you get silly - beleive me I know), a quaint messege from apt-get "you have been fooling with package states haven't you?" No kidding. I got a good chuckle out of that one.
But, back to the point. Meta packages are a convenience. They save a lot of typing and thus reduce the chance of typos. They install common groups of packages with one command.
Take yourself back in time when aptitude was developed. Much simpler system. Much smaller system. Hardware with much less power than the average flip phone. All system management done in the cli. Install a desktop. Use the new fangled meta packages
Don't like all those packages and want to remove one or two? Fine if nothing else depends on them and easy to do if you installed each package by itself manually. Not if installed automatically. Ok, change the state to manual. Remove the packages.
Now we use a lot more meta packages and need to be a bit careful. However, it works great. Just don't get silly with it.
Well, not on a production OS. Do another "play" install and be silly. It is really a lot of fun. You could remove nautilus and install xfwm and then your Xfce Settings Manager will work better.
That last is one minor reason for my now using Debian (Xfce) instead of a Ubuntu family member.
