Where have all the large Representations gone?

Gauge theories describe the interactions of the fundamental building blocks of nature with great success. The Standard Model achieves a partial unification of the electromagnetic and weak interactions, and it also acomodates the strong interactions. The known quarks and leptons appear in the fundamental representations (or singlets) of the SU(3)_cxSU(2)_L x U(1)_Y gauge symmetry. However, larger representations (EW triplets, color sextes, etc.) could also occur in principle. Bounds on such exotic states based on electroweak precision tests, unitarity, perturbativity and collider searches, indicate that they should be very heavy or may be non-existent. But why only small representations occur in nature? Several ideas that could give some light into this problem are discussed here, including the approach of Nielsen et al, as well as the possible compositeness of quarks and leptons. Then, we discuss the problem within the context of grand unified theories, where a principle of "minimal complexity" is proposed to restrict the size of large representations, when they are required to form unified multiplets.