I don't think this will be terribly widely applicable, but here it is anyway. If you want to:

• "retire" some of your blog postings without deleting the entries from your MT database,
  
• not worry about removing the individual archive files manually,
  
• generate appropriate "HTTP 410: Gone" error messages...

...then here is a little tutorial explaining how you might go about it:

Retiring entries with Movable Type

-Martin.