"I.E. If you can't run explorer.exe, yo can't have those things."

I'm not sure that's totally correct. I don't use explorer as a file manager and I believe the recycling bin works indipendent of explorer.exe. Some programs do use explorer (such as windows update) and I believe the LS developers are working on support for these.

"in order to make people change microsuX explorer.exe for litestep..."

I don't see LS as a competitive product that is trying to pull people away from MS. If it was it would be developed for Linux. If someone wants to use LS as their shell and explorer for file management then good for them. If they don't want to use explorer as their fm there are plenty of alternatives. If they want to use explorer as their shell, fm and web browser then that's fine too.

It's all about choice.