iTunes 7.x Installs Outlook Addin - No one seems to know why!

Its official, once I installed iTunes 7.x (which I am uninstalling) it installs an addin into Outlook! I can’t find any reason for this. I haven’t determine exactly why it installs it and what it does (I disabled it). This is to go through a nasty bundling of stuff with iTunes (anyone understand why Apple gets away with this but Microsoft gets critisized for it?).  When I install iTunes I get:

• iTunes Helper (which I have to constantly kill…doesn’t seem to do anything but provide a system tray icon).
• iPod Service (which I don’t need…I don’t have an iPod).  This is enabled by default which makes no sense since some percentage of users don’t have iPods.
• Quicktime and all the mess that comes with that (I don’t buy or intend to buy movies/tv from iTumes so I don’t need this).
• Apple Software Update:  Supposedly to keep us up to date with thier software, but it doesnt’ seem to do anything since iTunes still checks the website on launch to update iTunes by downloading a new version manually!
• And they paste icons everywhere (quick launch, start menu, desktop of every user).

Looks like they’ve hired some good people from Real and AOL to help them annoy users.  I’ll just have to live without their music store.

Anyone else have this experience?