Perhaps I was not clear... Or perhaps you did not undertand me. And at any rate, your comment is openly contradictory.
I will try again to be perfectly clear.
You can choose what applications to install from the installer. The 'Customize' option is located at the bottom of the installer pane. I never said the 'Customize' option was hidden, but in a 'horrible blind spot' of the installer pane. This link shows the view one has after clicking 'Customize.' The items quoted in the blurb you give are, in fact, applications. Microsoft messenger, for instance, is an application; the file extension designation is .app, which indicates it is an application. Is this correct?
I followed the instructions to cleanly uninstall Microsoft Office 2011. I then re-installed it and customized which applications to include. I now report with 100% success *not* installing Lync, Remote Desktop, Document Connection, etc., and installing only the applications I want, viz. PowerPoint, Word, and Excel.