New players dont want to read through the crap that infests the portal, have a nice simple splash page which wont put off anyone.
afaik the only people who ever wanted a portal were the pa team who were obsessed with it when it serves no real purpose. Annoucements on the forums was always the way to go as it lead to players getting into the forum conversations and would often draw them furthur into the community.
anyways
www.useit.com a great site for website usability perhaps someone from the pa team could have a skim through it.