> Some of us actually use that key outside of gaming.
If you disable the key you can't use it out of gaming anyway. Either taking the key out or disabling gives the same result: You can't use it again till you put back/enable the key again.
Also you have two Windows keys, disabling it via registry disables both. Taking the key which gets on the way (which usually is only the one between left Crtl and Alt keys) let the other key still for use.
...
I wonder if disabling via registry also disables Windows key shortcuts.