Why bother uploading to the portal unless you need version and access
control (at the library level) or you need Windows Rights Management.

Instead you could just have every one (not on Office 2003) save to a web
folder, create a listing in the portal, and create a search scope for the
web folder(s).

From Office 2000, XP and 2003, you can save directly to the Portal Solutions

File Save As

Enter http://<your portal server Url> in the save as

Select the container where to save the information

Alternatively, you can create a Network Place that point there and navigate to
the Network place

And if you use Windows XP you could also map a network drive to the
UNC path of a SharePoint Document Library and do a "File => Save as"
into a network drive. That way users wouldn't even recognize that they
don't use a classic file  share any longer ;-) It's what I recommend to
avery customer who is somewhat leary to either migrate all their
clients to the latest Office version or if the customer base doesn't
like to change old habbits.