You can do what I did on my windows machine, and rename iexplore.exe to something else, like iexplore_sucks.exe. That way, programs launching won't be able to call it by name, and if you absolutely need it for some site that's built to support IE (and not firefox, which is irritating, but somewhat common), you can launch it manually or just type the address into any windows explorer window.

Does the trick for me. Good for you for ditching that zero and getting with a hero. All my web developer buddies will thank you. (you too Christina) =)