iOS 7 Lock Screen Question

You can slide anywhere if you have no notifications and, yes, you can disable it.

 

You can use the whole screen to slide now.

You can disable notification center and the new control center from being accessible from the lock screen (and only accessible when the phone is unlocked).

 

It's a shame you can't swipe to the left to unlock the screen, too...

 

Make it even easier to unlock accidentally than it already became in iOS 7? I don't know...I'd still like to take it back to being a little bit harder than it already is, since after all, making it easier makes it all much less of a "lock", which is what it should primarily be.

 

If you have notifications then sliding where those notifications are will take you to them, otherwise, in other areas, it will simply unlock the screen.

The ability to have access to notification center from the lock screen is unrelated to lock screen notifications that can still show up there and be used just as before whether or not you have lock screen access to notification center enabled.