It's most likely not necessary to go to that sort of expense. On virtually all mountain bikes, the crank unit is actually made up of a number of pieces, each of which can be individually removed and replaced:
[left arm] -- [bottom bracket] -- [right arm] [ring] [ring] [ring]
If your rings are dead, you can just replace the rings, keeping your existing crankarms and bottom bracket. There are 2 or 3 different bolting standards for mountain bike chainrings, any store will make sure you get the right ones. Quite often the dimensions will be written right on the chainring somewhere.
If you want to go and upgrade your crank and BB anyway, you'll find heaps that will fit fine -- the bottom bracket shells are standardised. I had a KHS hardtail frame kicking about some time, it used a 68mm English thread bottom bracket (the same as about 98% of all the other MTB and road bikes out there nowadays)
If you rarely use the front gears, it's still handy to keep the front derailleur on there as a chain retention device of sorts. When you put the chain under load, the chain will jump around a bit and this (along with some other external force, like a bumpy road or changing the rear gears) can cause it to bump off the front ring. If you don't have something there to keep the chain on the chainring, you'll be in a spot of bother