Since I'm new to PureMVC in generally and want to avoid the added complexity of MultiCore
This is a misconception. MultiCore is no more complex than Standard, it simply allows for multiple sets of the Model, View, Controller and Facade to exist, so that each loaded swf/module ('core') can have its own insulated startup process and so forth. Each core looks like a standard PureMVC app.
Any project that loads multiple swfs/modules will inherently be slightly more complex. Whether you use PureMVC or not, you still have to figure out how the modules will communicate with each other.
And you still have any number of possible architectures with the parent swf (the 'shell') directly puppeteering the children being the most common brute force approach. That leads to a lot of communication burden being placed on the parent.
With MultiCore, you also have a 'take it or leave it' option for combating this problem; the Pipes utility. With Pipes, you usually end up replacing the shell's communication burden with plumbing burden, but in the end you can reach some of those other architectures where the loaded modules communicate with each other in a loosely coupled way; exchanging messages rather than knowing each other's internals or implementing interfaces and giving them references to each other.
Again, whether you're using PureMVC or not, once you begin developing an application that loads multiple swfs/modules and sets them up to communicate amongst themselves, you are making the parent less involved in module to module communication, but you are shouldering a new burden of creating interface and/or message protocols for the modules to communicate with each other.
So from the standpoint of approaching a modular project of any sort, it's easy to see how MultiCore (and optionally Pipes) might seem more complex. Because the reasons for using it are more complex. MultiCore enables modular development without adding a lot of baggage. You can't help the new level of concerns that modular development intrinsically brings with it.
-=Cliff>