Don't get me wrong, Bloc. As far as i am concerned, you are a true Hero of SMF and without you, i think many things, including the default SMF themes would have looked a bit different.

But like you say, TP has indeed become quite complex, but its the functionality that matters at the end. My other primary concern, which i haven't voiced, is the added "weight" that TP forces on the server when installed. It nearly doubles or triples the number of queries in many parts of the forum. I used to have it installed on one of my big forums and i was forced to upgrade to VPN. Lol. But i guess if you slim it down a bit. Oh, i just got a fantastic idea! Why not release a TP Lite?! That way, you just make it a small core version of the existing TP and include only the most basic functionality in it. Like myself, i need it only for the blog system with some pages, which places the posts and comments from within the forum on the front page. That's the basic feature of a portal. And if you include just that, maybe there won't be as many queries and it will become more server-friendly on bigger forums. What do you think?
The way i see things, is that Simpleportal is going to go the same way as TP did in a few years or less. It's not going to be simple anymore as development progresses and more features are added. So, i think having trimmed down version of a portal along with the full blown version should be available, depending on the types of forums. Personal/small forums can use the full version and the lite version is mainly for commercial/big forums.