Which 'system' apps can be safely removed I safely removed Front Row, Chess and Face Time which else system apps are safe to remove and which I should never touch?

I think it's a bad idea to remove "Dashboard.app" and "Launchpad.app".
I’m not sure why you would want to remove any of the apps that you mentioned — it’s not like they take up a lot of space or introduce security vulnerabilities or anything.

On the other hand, it would make sense to remove e.g. Java, for the reasons I mentioned before. If you don’t need Java, you can remove it by following these steps.

First of all you need to check which JVM (Java Virtual Machine) you have in your system. To do so, open Terminal.app, and enter:

sudo /usr/libexec/java_home –xml


If you you have JVM installed, you’ll get the JVMHomePath returned:

/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home


Then, remove JVM from your system:

# Wipe out the JVM installation location
sudo rm -rfv /System/Library/Java


After this, restart your Mac, and confirm JVM was successfully removed by running the first command again:

sudo /usr/libexec/java_home –xml


It should say something like:

Unable to find any JVMs matching version "(null)".
No Java runtime present, try –request to install.


This means that it worked, and that your OS X Lion is Java-free again.

(This is an improved version of the instructions on http://stikine.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/howto-remove-java/.)