Bob, yes there are occasions when MS does force you to use IE, not to mention you are using it in the background of Windows XP (since it is an integral part if XP), therefor you are still vulnerable to IE’s security issues even though you don’t use it as a browser. So you are effectively forced to keep that up to date.

Yes you could totally ignore IE updates (and you don’t have to use it as a browser), but you still have keep it upto date or leave your system vulnerable. That would be plain crazy, that is not a choice!

The fact that it’s free makes no difference since it is an integral part of windows xp and you paid for that.