Your version of balance and other's version of balance may differ. Remember the reason RF exists? Because the BC team didn't think storing MJ was balanced, and KL did. (Well, plus other reasons like server efficiency but..)
Also, it has 800k downloads.
...I don't even know where to begin trying to correct this, but in the end it would only derail the thread. Suffice to say the creation of RF was more a coder not wanting to keep carrying decimals through his code than any balance issue (hence why they continued to play nicely together all this time).
Your original statement, however, is correct. Everyone defines balance differently, especially when designing packs. That said, TiCo for 1.10 feels (to me) more balanced than it's 1.7 counterpart. Actual tradeoffs exist now, where before you could just build the best tool, then slap resources (maybe too few for the power) at it to make it godly.
My issue with add-ons for TiCo (and many add-on mods in general) is the internal balance within the mod is usually either skewed badly or outright disregarded when adding additional content (in this case materials and modifiers). Remember ExtraTiC and Signalum Crossbows? Hella fun, but completely broken in most packs. Remember when the nerf hammer dropped to fix the gross unbalance? You still see the occasional butthurt thread about it even now, usually asking what version to downgrade into to get their OP toys back. I'm not accusing the 1.10 add-on of this, as I've not played it. It's more of me being burned before.
Different strokes for different folks.