I've managed to do as you stated and had register completely removed, but it throws off the layout of the theme and unaligns the top portion of the page. Would it be possible to link the register text to the main joomla register page? Everything else is working fine though.
Edit:
I was able to find the solution to my issue here:
http://www.shape5.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,75/topic,10481.msg42184/#msg42184Specifically, I changed the line:
<div id="s5_register"
class="s5box_register"><ul class="s5boxmenu"><li><span><span><?php echo $s5_register;?></span></span></li></ul></div>
in templates/hexicon_gamer/index.php to:
<div id="s5_register"
onclick="window.document.location.href='[yoursite]/index.php?option=com_users&view=registration'"><ul class="s5boxmenu"><li><span><span><?php echo $s5_register;?></span></span></li></ul></div>
Just cut out the green portion and paste in the blue. Thanks for the template.