Simplicity in Slackware doesn't refer to it being simple for the user in my opinion but rather that the system itself is simply designed. A system that is simple is more stable than one that is complex and adding all the doodads to make it simple for the user adds complexity to the system, thus reducing it's stability. That, I think, is what the simplicity is about.
Now, as far as no packages or package management goes I beg to differ on there being none of those. Slackware has pkgtools which is it's package management system. The packages are essentially specially layed out tarballs that sometimes have scripts and the like that get run by the package tools. The tools of interest are installpkg, removepkg, and upgradepkg who's purpose is easy to see from the name. So, to install a package it's as easy as "installpkg nameofsomepackage.tgz" and to remove a package it's as easy as "removepkg nameofsomepackage".
If you aren't sure what is installed on your system or need to find out the name of a currently installed package to use with removepkg you can check the files in /var/log/packages/. Each installed package has a text file in there that describes what it is and which files were installed with that package. These files are actually used by the pkgtools for package management. Also, if you have a file and you want to know which package it is contained in you can just grep all of the contents of /var/log/packages/ for the filename and see which package it was installed from.
It is an unfortunate reality that Slackware doesn't have as huge of a repository of packages as, say Debian. This gap is partially filled by linuxpackages.net but in Slack you are almost sure to need to compile things yourself. That's where checkinstall comes in. Checkinstall is in the /extras directory on one of the Slack CD's. Checkiinstall will take what you compiled from source and create a slack package that you can install and easilly remove with the pkgtools which is nice for trying out software and not littering your system with files you don't need when you remove a package. Not every source has "make uninstall" setup in the makefile.
While the pkgtools are the base package system you can use some other tools as front ends for it and automate updates and installs from the official slackware packages. There's slackpkg in /extra, swaret, and slapt-get. These are all ways of checking to see what has been updated and get those packages via ftp, rsync, or http. I personally like swaret but slackpkg isn't bad. I haven't used slapt-get much though I'm pretty sure Dann has. I prefer swaret because it adds dependency checking and will prompt you to install any dependencies it finds lacking. There is even a nice GUI front end for swaret called Kswaret.
Some talk about the lack of dependency checking in slackware as a disadvantage, and it can be at times, but I don't mind grabbing the dependencies myself or using swaret to help find them. I'd rather deal with that then deal with dependency hell from other package management systems. But, as anything else Linux, this is just a personal preference. Oh, what if you have an rpm you want to install on slackware but no tgz available? rpm2tgz will convert it for you. Just thought I'd add that.
So, like I said, simplicity in the design is really the strength of slackware. No offence, but to say Slackware has no packages or package managemetn is just plain wrong. There is quite a bit to Slackware that get's missed at first blush.
I love slackware and havn't found another distro I like except for perhaps Arch. I often hear of misconceptions with slackware especially related to your simplicity question and package management and I hope this cleared things up a bit. That being said though, use the distro you want. That's the great thing about Open Source, the choice is yours and I won't fault you for not liking slackware or any other distro for that matter. I know I have my list of distroz I can't stand.
Anyway, sorry for the long winded post.
