does the doc folder contain only documentation?
It's specified by the TeX Directory Structure (TDS):
3 Top-level directories
- ...
doc
for user documentation
So, if there would be anything else than documentation, it would be in the wrong place.
Though I consider documentation as very important, I understand that you just change the way of access to online. Just note, that online documentation might not match the versions you have locally installed.
A good source for you: TeXdoc.net, based on TeX Live 2012 and regularly updated. It even offers a "quick search" you could use in the search field at the top right of the Firefox browser.
Please interpret this answer as having the best possible intention of helping you. :)
Although this doesn't tell you how to do what you've asked for, and although I don't have any idea about your personal "disk space circumstances", I'd strongly recommend pursuing a different solution.
One option is simply "get more disk space"; I accept this may not be an option in your case.
For another approach, you may care to try a tool like WinDirStat (for Windows -- I have no experience of doing this on Linux, though KDE has KDirStat, I think). This will allow you to find the "hot spots" quickly.
Experience suggests that micro-managing space by trimming lots of small files doesn't usually give you a good return for your time, when compared with offloading, say, three films onto an external drive.
My current TeXLive texmf-dist/doc
subtree is 1.25 Gb; I think it's worth every byte to have it at my fingertips.
The post is old, but for actual readers: as far I know, any package update will reinstall them, so deactivate this in your manager. For example "tlmgr option docfiles 0", or option it out in preferences of TexLive Utility.