i think the best place should be the general haching discussion? or the lounge?
anyway, about your choice phpportals have alot of queries performed and nuke is simply terible. you load galore of modules just to use few of them.
php portals is the easiest one to integrate, nuke requires hacking some files to match the user tables.
have you ever considered to look for a small script like:
vbHome (lite) or
vbIndex?
just be carefull about the number of queries. dont go over 30 on a page.
let me know if you need more info...