Last time I used counterblock/lib or something from the official development, pointed that to the coindaddy public counterparty server together with bitcoind wallet. I was able to all counterparty functionalities thru command lines (made a vote for community leader). So I only need to have the big ass bitcoin blockchain, but do not need run the bigger ass counterparty chain. Not so bad really.
How big is the counterparty chain?
not much comparing to btc, but if start from scratch, it'll need a lot of IO for days (it once overheated my drive). There's a boostrap option though.
What are you guys talking about? Counterparty doesn't have its own blockchain, it's built on top of Bitcoin.