BuddyPress.org

Using BuddyPress will ensure constant, future-proof development. I think using it instead of a random authors plugin is probably the best thing to do.

You’re still going to need to adapt to WordPress being a slave to BuddyPress for all of the ways that BP hooks into and filters things like themes.

BP assumes that you’re going to use most of its components, and if you turn them off it’s kind of up to you as the site author/admin to adjust accordingly.