Questions about Mootools inclusion in J1.5

[madsamurai]

I've been using mootools in various areas of my J1.5 development site, and have some questions as to exactly how mootools is incorporated into the base Joomla setup.

1) I've noticed if I use mootools funtions in my template, it works without implicitly includiing the mootools JS, which says to me that somwhere Joomla is including it already... BUT mootools functionality doesn't work in my components unless I include the file in my component code. Seems to me like if it's included to work with the template rendering, that it should work across the board. So the question I have is where is the include happening and specifically what does it apply to?

2)I can see by looking at the mootools_uncompressed.js file that it's version 1.11, but I don't know what mootools components are included. Is it the complete mootools package, or only partial?

3) Assuming it is the full package with all the components, can I override the included file with my own partial mootools.js? specifically, I have a java applet within the component I'm developing that has some conflicts with the Ajax Remote components in mootools, but I need other parts of mootools for that view. I would like to include my own mootools install without the Remoting components, but only on the views where this java applet is in play.

4) Does Joomla actually use mootools, or is it just included for convenience? Could I replace the media/system/js/mootools.js file without worrying about damaging Joomla?

Thanks!  If there's some documentation in the wiki I missed, please point me to it.