I'm using 2.49b, and this thing, which should be so simple, is really starting to annoy me, as I've spent probably an hour searching the web and looking through Blender buttons with no luck.
I have way too many items on one UV map, and they won't go away, no matter what I try. Even dragging all undesired items off to the side, out of the square...
I saved the UV map, and when I opened it up in Gimp, all of the damned things were there again.
I've also deleted all UV map saves. That didn't do it... I saw talk of a "Clear Map" button, but that was in an older version, and I've found no such thing in this one.