I removed mine in the supra. it wasn't hard. it's molded into the fiberglas of the boat. once it was out, I saw no structural reason to have it installed other than a place for skiers to place a sub and as a footrest/divider to the front of the boat. took 10 minutes and a sawzall

there's pics before and after in my old stereo install thread.

several on here have placed boxes on top of that, but I found it to be cleaner to remove it in my particular case.