Disable/remove App Store

Hey,

Does anyone know how one would go about disabling and removing the Mac App Store outside of using Parental Controls? Here's what I've tried:

1. Trashing App Store.app entirely - which seems to re-assign the "App Store" link in the Apple menu back to "Mac OS X Downloads..."; the only problem is that when you attempt to open a file type that OS X doesnt recognize, the dialog asks you if you want to search the App Store at which point you hit the button and it does nothing. Not a proper solution.

2. Restricting access to App Store.app via CHMOD - would prefer to avoid this solution as it's more of a hack than anything.

Is there a hidden preference anywhere in the system to just get rid of this without having to avoid downloading 10.6.6 or any future OS X updates?