Welcome to the forum Heath!
You are sadly discovering one of the joys of telephone carriers, and mobile manufacturers. You can use apps like Startup Auditor if it is available to you on the android market. It stops certain apps from starting and running.
Your other alternative would be to download something like ADW launcher from the market and use that to change the view of your app drawer so that you don't have to keep scrolling through loads of useless apps and just have in there what you want to see.
Cubz is absolutely right tho, the only way to remove them once and for all is to root the phone (which is out of my comfort zone tbh) but with the release of the new 2.1 Android update coming within the next few months there is an argument for staying as you are.
The other site that offers loads of info on rooting is XDA Developers.
If you have any more questions, have a look through the forum and if you can't find what you are looking for, then ask away. Look forward to seeing you around.