Have you looked into the gregtech configs? Im looking at 1.5 settings now so they might be different but for example I see 'explosions on non wrench= true" set it to false, no exploding machines. You can turn off rain causing explosions, change the time it takes to have a machine run one cycle (make centrifuges fast, etc.). By default it looks like recycling mob drops is disabled, but you can enable it through te configs to make things easier. You can disable the solar panel gregtech change, that makes basic solars harder to craft.
I just found 'harderrecipes" and one of them is 'macerator=true'. There is an example of a machine recipe that requires diamonds in gregtech, but it's own config file lets you go back to the basic and cheaper IC2 recipe.
its a pretty deep config file, if you enjoy the mod but dislike how it makes things more expensive, config changes might be what you are looking for.
if you just dont enjoy the mod then disabling it like Unizero said is your best bet.