I agree, a standard hardcore ruleset would be great. We have a hardcore toggle in portal, but it has a few flaws. My biggest gripe is is the cursor disable option. I wish it had multiple options cause right now, if you turn it off, the hip fire goes away, but so does every vehicle and turret's cursor as well. I have just been leaving it on for my hardcore server as having the cursor for the tow missiles and helicopters/jets on far out weighs the hip fire cursor off.
Some dedicated servers would be nice, but if they can figure out this portal thing, this could work for the hardcore community.