I finally got around to trying something I've been thinking of doing - making tomato paste using rehydrated dried tomatoes! It worked great, using 2 year old tomatoes. I just soaked them in hot water, and used 5 oz, which is 5 lbs worth of tomatoes. I blended it up, in 2 batches in the Vitamix, which was just over 2 lbs. I cooked them down for 1 1/2 hrs, to 15.5 oz, scraping it frequently. The flavor and aroma is incredible, due to starting out with dried tomatoes.
5 oz dried tomatoes, rehydrated to 2 lbs of sauce. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Cover I use for the wok, for messy things. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Tomato paste, cooked down just an hour. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Cooked down 1 1/2 hours. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

5 lbs worth of dried tomatoes, cooked down to 15.5 oz. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Cool! Great idea.

That reminds me of something unrelated, but it's something that might give you more ideas. Lately, I've been freezing alpine strawberries because they taste good frozen, and make a longer-lasting, more substantial, seemingly more filling snack than fresh ones. A lot of our alpine strawberries dry to a crisp on the plant; however, I've found that if I wash the dry crispy ones and freeze them, they rehydrate a bit in a way that gives them really nice, gently chewy, texture and taste. If you gently wet some dry tomatoes and froze them in a bag, I wonder what would happen, and if it might make turning them into paste a bit easier.

They use dry chilies all the time to make a paste or thick sauce.
I use chili powder to make rich sauces.
With the tomatoes you would have to put them in a blender or food processor after simmering for awhile.
But it is doable.