WinSxS folder size issue

Q: As I understand it, the total size reported to/by Windows 7 for the Winsxs folder is inaccurate, in that less physical space is actually being used (due to how file links are counted up, etc.). Is this true? If so, is there any fix planned for this terrible bug that leaves a good portion of the disk idle and unusable?
A: I should note that disk free space is not calculated by subtracting the reported used space from the total space, but is directly reported by the file system itself. Even if the size reporting by Explorer were tremendously inflated for the WinSXS area, this is not going to leave "a good portion of the disk idle and unusable".
Source:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7performance/thread/8683e47e-709b-41fd-861e-340009243bfe

Some hints to safely reduce the size of the folder

The only way to safely reduce the size of the WinSxS folder is to reduce the set of possible actions that the system can take – the easiest way to do that is to remove the packages that installed the components in the first place. This can be done by uninstalling superseded versions of packages that are on your system. Service Pack 1 contains a binary called VSP1CLN.EXE, a tool that will make the Service Pack package permanent (not removable) on your system, and remove the RTM versions of all superseded components. This can only be done because by making the Service Pack permanent we can guarantee that we won’t ever need the RTM versions.
Source: www.winvistaclub.com/f16.html

Christian Bering Boegh has created a tool called WinsxsLite, which works by deleting some unnecessary files and, in their place, linking to the latest versions of the same files (the WinSxS folder, by default, contains duplicates of many files).
Source:
http://windowsfixup.com/2009/05/winsxs-folder-taking-up-too-much-disk-space-fix/