There are a number of applications installed by default in Ubuntu, that I don't need (Games, Evolution, Totem, XSane, Rhythmbox, Serpentine, Ekiga Softphone), and therefore, would like to uninstall. Unfortunately, it seems that all installed by default applications are a dependance of the deb called ubuntu-desktop. The description of this ubuntu-desktop in synaptic says that keeping this deb installed is recommended, but from the description I can't understand what it is for, nor can I understand what the consequences of removing it would be, so that I can remove all of the other applications that I don't need.

Go ahead and remove it. Just make sure that if you're using Breezy, you reinstall it before upgrading to Dapper. Likewise, if you're using Dapper, make sure you have ubuntu-desktop installed before you upgrade to Edgy.