Happy Halloween Everyone

I have been using KDE 4.1 for quite a while now and with the latest update of Ubuntu to 8.10, it is better than ever. Many thanks to the Ubuntu and KDE team. However, one thing that has been bugging me is the spinning gear + K status icon on the top right corner of Konqueror; it is large and wastes quite a bit of vertical space.

This icon cannot be removed like the one in Konqueror on KDE 3 since it is not part of a toolbar. It seems to be part of the menubar, but I've tried XBar + Bespin to move the menubar to the top panel and the extra vertical space for this icon remained (although the icon was no longer there).

I have also tried renaming the corresponding icons in the Oxygen folder, but Konqueror just shows a question mark icon in its place.

I understand that some users find this icon useful, but one thing that I love about KDE is its wide range of customizability so I hope that there is a way to resolve this small but, for me, annoying issue.

Cheers,
/mmr