I made some progress, but not as much as I would like. I found a mod called Proper Portals made by Crystal . The mod shortens the load time and makes zoning into crypts and whatnot instant. You can customize some of the features,such as item restrictions. Personally I like metal restrictions because it makes me go on awesome sailing adventures. But that's just me. Here are the fields you can customize...
(Copy of the config file below)
[Portal]
## Whether to allow using portals while carrying portal restricted items such as metals. Game default is false.
# Setting type: Boolean
# Default value: true
CarryAnything = false
## The time it takes to fade the screen before teleporting. Teleporting does not start until after the screen fade completes. Game default is 1.
# Setting type: Single
# Default value: 0.5
FadeTime = 0
## The minimum time to wait for a teleport to complete, in seconds. It can take longer if the target location needs to be loaded. Increase this if you have the issue of dropping in before loading completes. Game default is 8.
# Setting type: Single
# Default value: 0
MinPortalTime = 0
## The distance at which a portal will start glowing and making noise when a player approaches it. Maximum accepted value is 10. Setting to 0 prevents portals from glowing or making noise at all. Game default is 3.
# Setting type: Single
# Default value: 2
ActivationRange = 2
.....
This is good enough for me for now. Although, I would love to be able to get rid of the splash screen entirely for close portals. I haven't figured out how to do that since the immersive portals mod broke.