Chadglni:
You may want to look into /wp-admin/admin-header.php
On line 161:
addLoadEvent(newCatAddIn);
Comment that out and hopefully it should work. I haven't tested it out yet, as I don't have WP v2 installed.
Basically you are disabling the categories loader. Whether it disables only the visualization part or the entire category list, I haven't looked too much into it.
I suspect not, but try it any way.
I'll respond in an hour or so with the 'proper' solution
