So, you don't want Spotlight's ugly blue lens present in the menu bar, right? How about concealing it? As an administrator, navigate to /System » Library » CoreServices » Search.bundle. Control-click on Search.bundle and choose Show Package Contents. In the new window that opens, navigate into /Contents » Resources. Copy MDSearchWidget_Normal-1.tiff to the desktop. Open this file in Photoshop or your editor of choice, and wipe the Spotlight lens and then save. (The file will get bigger -- from some 2.5k to 52k or so; it's OK.)

Now, check the permissions of original file and match it on our copied file by unlocking it. Lock it again and put it back inside the Resources folder, after removing the original and storing it in a safe place. Run Disk Utility and repair permissions and restart. Voila. The Spotlight lens is gone from the menu. However, there are two things that remain:

1. The space occupied by the Spotlight lens remains. The date is that much offset to the left.
2. By clicking on the place where the Spotlight icon was, you can still use Spotlight, just without looking at the icon.

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one; I actually like the Spotlight icon. This earlier hint touched on modifying the various Spotlight resources, while this hint explained how to completely disable the Spotlight menu.]