well, persistance seems to be the key here. Having now used both, I found Zenfolio easier to customise quickly, but have found you run out of options quite quickly. Smugmug took more time to get into, but seems to be much more customisable in terms of both gallery styles and colours.
I can see why the OP raisde the question.
Would appreciate any comments though:
Smugmug gallery
Zenfolio gallery
Still a long way from being finshed, but much slicker than pbase.
Many thanks, apologies to the OP, not meaning to hijack your thread, but hopefully contribute to it.
Mike