They're not lame when you've just created a portal into the nether and popped in for a quick look around. I've been trying out the Mage quest alpha and just made a portal. I hadn't expected to see them in the nether so was somewhat surprised when one crept up behind me and teleported me next to a fortress. Nice, except I hadn't yet set a way point for my portal and had absolutely no idea where it was in relation to where I now was. After looking around for a while I ended up going into creative so I could fly around and see if I could see my portal, thinking it couldn't have teleported me far. But the portal was no where to be seen. Finally in desparation I cheated in some obsidian and made a portal to the overworld. I was 2000 blocks away from home . When I got back I entered the nether and set my portal waypoint immediately. I then looked at the way point I'd set for the fortress and it was over 200 blocks away. I didn't particularly find it fun being lost in the nether with no way out so I'm considering disabling that mod.