You miss Xfce entirely. HAL is a hard dependency in Xfce 4.4.1. I think we can safely assume it will be in future versions as well. If you find a way to compile the current Xfce without HAL I'm sure the developers would love to hear about it.
I think joe1962 already did it.
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-5.8/fixes/xfce-4.4.0-no-hal-i586-4vl58.tlz
Actually, I only asked for it, Vec built it.
Well, thanks to Vec then. About the topic, I think there is nothing to discuss anymore, since the option for disabling hal/enabling hal will be there. So if this is about personal preference now, thanks joe for vl-hot

IM_very_very_very_HO, since we use VL because it is rational and logical in the resources administration, it should stay like that. Daemons are not good in general, all but udevd, httpd and ifplugd, may be -ifconfig is just an 8 letters word

- and less daemons are always better.