I have taken a look at nivBuffs, still no win.
I took out :
- the positioning
- the ref to UNIT_AURA
- the enablemouse (and tooltip part in the xml)
- max display was taken out as well
As far attributes go : I don't quite see which ones I am missing that are needed. Unless all of them are needed, then Blizz created a monster
@Seerah : Show me?
EDIT : Apparently Show() is key :P