[bigbadwulff]

I didn't like the fact Google Search was atop every screen, so I DISABLED it( Settings/APPS/ ALL/ Google Search/Disable(may show this, may not). What happened was all my voice input was then rendered useless. I had to do a factory reset to get it working again.

Just a heads up.

[Lanhoj]

If you want to remove it from the top of each screen, I'd recommend another Launcher like Nova Launcher-->

[bigbadwulff]

I used to use Go Launcher all the time with my Droid X but find the native one works OK with the M.. The only reason for me to use another launcher is to delete icon labels although I did that indirectly by creating all folders, then deleting the label. But you are correct there.