Google found one match for "brazil vs portugal" "written language" (second try; first was full of soccer pages), which included:

Although the written language is more or less the same in all countries, speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese Portuguese have trouble undestanding each other's spoken language.

That's good enough for me at this point.

Thanks, theorbtwo. This is the main trouble in having the same documentation for the two languages. There is little chances of understanding from both sides.

Like tye points out from his googling, the spoken languages are problematic for the two main varieties of Portuguese, but not the written ones. Spanish has relatively minor pronunciation and vocabulary differences in the major varieties---a situation which is much more like that of North American and English English. The major differences there have less to do with one form or another not existing in the other variety, but rather with how frequently certain vocabulary and grammar is used.

I would still argue for more specific encoding internally because it is always easier to go from more specific to less specific, but the reverse is much more difficult. Who knows? Maybe someday someone will want to give Perl Monks lots of money for promoting, say, Perl learning in Brazilian Portuguese, but government regulations prevent them from accepting documentation in Continental Portuguese---admitedly a bit of a long shot... ;)