I needed to swap out the default ‘top.links’ that are populated by ‘template/page/top.links.phtml’ and assorted ‘layout/*.xml’ files, respectively.  In most installs, I create a ‘layout/local.xml’ that overrides existing xml layout files within Magento.  In this particular case, I needed to remove the ‘My Account’, ‘Wishlist’, ‘Cart’ and ‘Checkout’ links.  In addition, I needed to add a link to the ‘Contacts’ page and create the logic to turn back on the ‘Cart’ and ‘Checkout’ links at a later date.

All of this below should go into ‘path/to/magento/app/design/frontend/theme/theme_group/layout/local.xml’

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">
<default>
<reference name="root">
     <reference name="top.links">
          <action method="removeLinkByUrl"><url helper="customer/getAccountUrl"/></action>
          <remove name="checkout_cart_link"/><!--Will remove both 'cart' and 'checkout'-->
               <block type="checkout/links" name="checkout_cart_link_custom">
                    <action method="addCheckoutLink"></action><!--readding 'checkout'-->
                    <action method="addCartLink"></action><!--readding 'cart'-->
               </block>
          <remove name="wishlist_link"/>
          <action method="addLink" module="contacts"><!--Add new link to 'contacts-->
               <label>Email Us</label>
               <url>contacts</url><!--any url from root or use 'helper' e.g. 'helper="customer/getLoginUrl"'-->
               <prepare>true</prepare><!--setting to 'true' makes url absolute-->
               <title>Email Us</title>
               <position>100</position>
          </action>
     </reference>
</reference>
</default>
</layout>

I’m sure there is a more efficient way to do this, but as far as I can tell, it’s an adequate way to build out Magento functionality rather than hardcoding and overwriting.  All you experienced Magento folk, please hit me up with some feedback.

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