I always imagined the portrait mode being all four the home screens compiled and compressed in one view, like the four homescreens being 4 big widgets in one view

wouldn't that be easier and more practical to implement?

I guess that would be true portrait support, what I don't understand why people just want everything to flip, that would mean in portrait mode you would still have to use "two handed" because you would need to swipe to the other home screens, so making them all in one would be the best way to go kind of like in N97 portrait mode with the widgets but instead active home screen rectangles