Hi Exofalcon! That's a fantastic question, and I've been wondering the same thing for a long time. Unfortunately, I believe it's impossible. Without Alice, I think you can't run a world.
But you know, on the other side of things, just like a game made with Unity 3D for your browser, you need the Unity 3D plugin to run those types of games.
So really, Alice could just be a plugin - but just like you said, you want a stand-alone version of a game application, not a .a2w file.
Someday in the future, I really hope they make it possible to convert .a2w files into .exe's or .dmg (for Mac). That would be super awesome, and then Alice Game making would be just like any othe rprofessional game creator!