I think vanilla IC2 is a bit overpowered compared to other mods in this pack. Here's a few examples of what I mean:
- The macerator recipe is 9 iron, 3 copper, and some flint/redstone. This is incredibly cheap compared to the Rock Crusher of Railcraft (12 diamonds and 12 pistons), and slightly cheaper than the Pulverizer of Thermal Expansion which requires more gold and redstone, and Factorization's complicated multi-step setup that can only be powered by a crazy mirror array. The Macerator is also easily powered by solar energy and thus duplicates ore yields for free while the Rock Crusher and Pulverizer require fueled systems or more complicated energy conversion through electric engines. There is little reason to make these more expensive machines and this causes players to lean heavily on IC2 instead of viewing these other mods as viable options.
- The Mass fabricator of IC2 is incredibly overpowered when you introduce mods like compact/advanced solar panels. With large quantities of free EU produced from these higher tier solar panels, you can easily produce endless UU Matter which can be used to make more mass fabricators. When a player makes more than 2 or 3 mass fabricator setups, they quickly trivialize mining as they can begin producing iron, tin, copper, gold, diamonds, redstone and most anything else that can be found under the ground.
- While other mods add pickaxes and tools with new materials such as steel or Thaumium ingots, IC2 allows players to make invincible tools with a bit of iron, copper, tin and redstone. These rechargeable tools quickly trivialize ANY other tools in the game, even with their lack of ability to accept enchants. With the exception of a silk touch tool for rare circumstances, there is no reason to ever make anything besides a drill and chainsaw which will last you forever.
The problem is IC2, gregtech attempts to address this but I'll agree that it's not the best fix for every player. It penalizes the casual players who might want to start getting into UU matter production, but don't have the time to scour the world for Iridium ore. Luckily you can configure it to your preference. If you're not going to break them game with UU production, then simply enable the mass fabricator as I did. As for the expensive recipes, it's not a huge deal to try other mod's tools and machines before you start an IC2 based machine room because you don't need to lean on IC2 like a crutch when there's like 4 other mods in the pack that work just fine at providing these things. And if it really bothers you, you can edit the config to your personal taste.
Gregtech is easily the MOST configurable mod in the pack, it's meant to be edited to your preference. Anyone who can figure out how to work an internet forum will find editing a simple text file much even easier than complaining that gregtech is making their life harder in minecraft. Life's too short to get angry at mods you can configure.