Did you actually read my post?! On the blackberry, you CAN'T turn off blackberry messenger, either. Hence, I suggested that Google is attempting to do the exact same thing. As such, if it's really bothering you, the only real 'solution' is to disable notifications...just as it's the same 'solution' on the blackberry. The consolation is that Google Talk doesn't really use that much memory or battery when it's 'on'. This concept of this thread has been discussed ad nauseum on other threads. Indeed, here's two quick posts that I found in 2 seconds with search
here and
here.