Possible to turn off NetworkManager?

[Stuart McGraw]

In the past (fedora-8, fedora-11), I have always turned 
off the NetworkManager service, leaving just the network 
service running and configured by network (which are wired 
and seldom change) by editing configuration files or using 
a little network config tool (forgot what its executable 
name was).

In Fedora 15 when I turn off NetworkManager service 
(systemctl disable NetworkManager.service) and turn on 
the network service and reboot, I get all sorts of dire 
messages in syslog [*], and I have no network connectivity.

I would like to turn off services that don't offer any 
useful (to me, at least I think) functionality, like 
NetworkManager.  Is this still possible in Fedora-15/systemd?

[*] For example:
Jun 11 10:50:43 soga dbus-daemon: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service failed to load: No such file or directory. See system logs and 'systemctl status' for details.