In gconf-editor, go to desktop/gnome/session/, and change required_components_list to "[windowmanager,panel]".
While we're way, way off topic, you might also want to go to desktop/gnome/interface and change gtk_key_theme to "Emacs" so that the text edit box keybindings (except in Epiphany, grr) are Emacs-style.
Contempt, thy name is Gnome.
Getting back on topic, fat binaries makes perfect sense for shared libraries, so they can all go in /lib and /usr/lib. However, there's no reason to think anybody would force them on you for an EEE install.