I imagine it can be done...slightly off-topic, how would your site contact users via email if you don't save their email? (The email field in profile is not the same as the one on registration page)

im not intending to do any of that...I do not even have an smtp server for email set up on my server.  im not really looking to make a big site, just a small social site for me and my friends to upload our own pics and videos.  more of a hobby for me right now, but i figured if i am not going to use it, get rid of it.  keep it simple.  plus im sure there are plenty of people who may be interested to know this as well.

i have been to another elgg site where the owner did exactly this, however he has not replied back to me as to how he did it.

Have a look at community.elgg.org/pg/forum/topic/839506/registration-page/

i looked through that thread and found some good tips, but still havent figured it out.  especially since i am using the profile manager plugin and the registration control plugin.  profile manager to add and remove fields in the profile, and registration control to force users to be joined to a specific group upon joining.  so between those two plugins and the core elgg files which i know are a "no no"...its a little hard to track down.  I did manage to get the field removed from the page, however upon submission i get a failure message due to an unknown error.

The error is because the action file is looking for an email input and you've taken it away. This isn't a problem, it just means you're half way through. If you go back and read that thread that TW mentioned you'll spot some talk about extending actions etc. have a look at that stuff again.