Customer render $scripts and $styles Short of replacing html.tpl.php and calling drupal_get_js/drupal_get_css functions and tweaking the output as required...

How else can I drop some of the JS or CSS that drupal (D7) seems to include in the resulting markup??

The ajaxPageState object is quite confusing I would rather start from minimal markup and stuff and build from what I know.

Any ideas/???
You can do this with some alter hooks in your themes template file.

/**
 * Implements hook_css_alter().
 */
function YOURTHEME_css_alter(&amp;$css) {
  // Remove stylesheets not required
  unset($css['sites/default/themes/YOURTHEME/css/STYLESHEET.css']);
}

/**
 * Implements hook_js_alter().
 */
function YOURTHEME_js_alter(&amp;$js) {
  // Remove scripts not required
  unset($js['sites/default/themes/YOURTHEME/js/SCRIPT.js']);
}