With the barrels the right size, the bricks look HUGE. The barrels aren't phong shaded, so chopcurve wouldn't have done anything anyway. I just assumed you were getting the MAX_PATCHES error, but when the compiler crashes... well, that's anybody's guess as to why. The numportals has nothing to do with lighting. That's just for VIS. Surface area is what matters for lighting.
I think I mentioned this before, but why don't you just use the stock white barrel and use the new textures as the HR4 version? Also, some phong shading on those barrels would help a lot in making them look less boxy. To phong shade things, set the value in the surface properties (but don't check light!). Everything with the same value will be blended together. Basically every barrel needs its own value (just the side textures, not the top), but I typically cheat. I gave the .wal files for all the barrel side textures different values and just make sure no two barrels with the same color touch. It's not the most efficient for the compiler, but it makes things easier.