I'm with @Steve Browning in that there is so much choice these days.
I have the big valve stack for festivals and tours but for simple pub / small club shows I've had a few different rigs, all of which have been great. I'm definitely old school too and the Terror Bass stuff is great, the Ampeg PF stuff is great and I had some Aguilar stuff that was great too. In actual fact I think you can be surprised with how good things are these days, without compromising on tone. My big rig is as much a visual thing as the smaller rigs can look a bit amateur on big stages but I've had some great sounds from the smaller shows.
Again echoing what has been said, on the times I've shown up with a smaller rig and thought "is this going to cut it?", everything has gone through the PA so it's never been an issue.