sstrip from http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/elfkickers.html brings the exe down some more after a normal strip; needs the following changes to compile on linux.x86_32:

////////////////////////////////////

/* This header no longer exists, provide definitions below */
/* #include	<asm/elf.h> */
#define ELF_CLASS       ELFCLASS32
#define ELF_DATA        ELFDATA2LSB
#define ELF_ARCH        EM_386
/* </asm/elf.h>

////////////////////////////////////


Then put the following in your to-be (empty) executable file ("myexe"):

a=/tmp/I;tail -n+2 $0|zcat>$a;chmod +x $a;$a;rm $a;exit

Then run:
gzip -cn9 a.out >> myexe
chmod +x myexe