Where is the setting to disable the itemListLinks box from the category listing. I can delete it from the template but I would prefer to disable it in case I want to bring it back later. I just can't find the setting.

Did you ever get this resolved. I'm having this same issue and there seems to be no documentation on this.

Make sure your category is not inheriting its settings from another category, if that is the case, then you need to edit the 'master' category's settings.