Go ahead and try out synaptic. You likely won't hurt anything. Just avoid removing libraries and such unless apt wants to do it. You can usually remove virtually any application you don't want/need. I did see some recent problems w/ removing frozen-bubble but it was easily solved. The first thing I do is remove all of KDE with one simple command:
Code:
apt-get remove libarts1
apt then tells me it will remove a whole bunch of stuff and it does so without problems.

Don't want qtparted? Use Synaptic, select it, click 'Remove' and then 'Apply. Synaptic tells you each step of the way what it's doing or about to do.