I've posted a release of zpkg 1.0.0 on the zpkg webpage:
http://www.zope.org/Members/fdrake/zpkgtools/
The documentation has been reviewed and revised, so hopefully it won't be so hard to dive into, though there's still a lot to pick up on when starting fresh.
Thanks to Stephan Richter and Brian Sutherland for their contributions.
-Fred