From what I understand, the clock and the buttons for email/sms/missed calls, are all integrated together. Now, it's possible to break them down, like, in Start/Settings/Personal/Today - you can take off the HTC Home plugin, and add the Date/time plugin, which is alot smaller, but you won't have your email/sms/missed calls button below it, but,,, you can also add today plugins for those too, if I'm not mistaken.
