Are you use that the Gnome-desktop environment is removed when you remove Evolution? As far as I know only the ubuntu-desktop package will be removed. This just a so-called meta-package. It doesn't contain anything itself, it is only useful if you would like to get the default ubuntu-desktop and applications back.
I removed Evolution (a long time ago) with
Code:
sudo aptitude remove evolution
It is always the first thing I do on a fresh Ubuntu install, since I prefer Thunderbird for my mail. I never had any problems with removing Evolution, apart from the warning that also the ubuntu-desktop package would be removed. That is fine with me since it is just a dummy package.
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