I don't understand why nobody loves challenges... I guess you love the watering can from extra utils that "isn't" OP in any way ? Or the quarry with just a diamond pick instead of advanced diamond drill?
I like challenges. I just like real, sincere, rewarding challenges. And I tend to make these myself. Some aspects of what greg does are enjoyable to me, but many times I feel like I'm required to do a bunch of things I have no interest in to progress to the parts that I do have interest in. Many other mods are not structured in such a long, linear tech tree and as such give you access to a diverse tree of features without a lot of grinding.
A good example of a fairly strong approach here is Forestry. Forestry has several long and involved grinding mechanics in it (totemic example: bees), but it gives you access to reduced power versions fairly quickly and lets you refine those as required. There are tech trees in Forestry, but for the most part is designed around increasing. And to be honest, just walking a mod's tech tree is boring to me. No mod really holds up long like this. This is why a lot of us want to play mixed mod games in modpacks. I can keep nearly every recipe for GT in my head if I want, but the sheer combinatoric explosion of mod interactions is nearly impossible to ever fully understand, and is always changing.
So I ask you, MoltenX. Why don't you like a challenge?
P.S., why is the watering can OP, anyways? Any time a player has to sit around doing repetitive tasks in a world where the automation options are so good, they'd better get rewarded heavily.