Well, I march to the beat of a rather different drum, so here's what I end up doing:
* Remove: GregTech, Extra Bees, and Extra Biomes
Why: GregTech focuses more on 'UberTech', like 'after you get done getting your Gavisuite, and you don't have much left over to do, start doing this'. In exchange, it also makes using IC2 uniformly harder. Sure, you can change all that back in the config, but since it adds nothing I have any interest in... I just remove it.
Extra Bees and Extra Biomes I remove mostly for convenience. Here's the thing... extra biomes is an awesome mod, which gives you TONS of additional biomes you can run around in, which looks absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, with all those extra biome choices, the odds of finding biome-specific resources you need to get started (rubber trees) goes down. I don't want to have to travel 2k+ blocks just to find a blinkin' rubber tree so I can upgrade to the industrial age. Extra Bees are almost entirely undocumented, and almost always produces something I don't need. Stony bees producing cobble.... wut?
I might put Extra Biomes back in, due to TE allowing me an alternative that doesn't require biome-specific resources. It really does add a lot to the atmosphere and ambiance of the world, and creates some truly breathtaking vistas and landscapes.
* Replace NEI with CraftGuide
Why: I like the user interface of CraftGuide better. NEI is an awesome mod, not denying that, BUT it's just... too much. It has too much functionality, and many of the options just gets in my way. I'd much rather just have CraftGuide which I can pull up with a hotkey than have to see all that stuff in my inventory window. I prefer something leaner rather than something with more features. Notepad++ rather than MS Word (or rather, LibreOffice Writer, but that's a debate for a different thread
) .
* Add: Valve Pipes, Logistics Pipes, Routing Pipes, Forestry Plugin, Optifine, and Enchanting plus
Why: Valve, Routing, and Logistics Pipes add more needed functionality, although Routing Pipes will probably go away when ABO comes out. Valve Pipes are absolutely necessary for anyone playing with Railcraft Steam Boilers. Industrial pipes carry more steam, and the cobble/gold and stone/gold pipes can REALLY compact build designs. Logistics Pipes... I'm not a big fan of some of the places it has gone to since Krapht passed along the torch, but fortunately you can disable power requirements in the config settings. However, it's a sorting system, autocrafting system, and in general makes automation a lot easier to do.
Optifine... d'uh. Tweak system performance and graphics, plus HD texture packs. No reason not to install.
Forestry Plugin... again, something that should be standard install when you have Forestry, IC2, and BC all installed.
Enchanting Plus... because I absolutely despise, with a bloody passion, random enchants, particularly when you are trying to enchant electric tools or armor. It just makes Enchanting viable, in my opinion.
What I would like to see:
Electric tools that aren't IC2. I like the mechanic of 'make it once, and it won't break, even if you do need to recharge it'. This also increases the pain level when you die (zombie stole my chainsaw WUT!?!), and makes corpse recovery a little more 'interesting'. RP2 already has the incredibly awesome Sonic Screwdriver. Maybe there will be other electric gem tools in the future?
As far as texture packs, I'm trying to find a decent one. I'm not a big fan of Sphax. I don't like the whole irregular pentagon motif. However, I do like how it does glass and glass panes, when paired with Optifine to do smooth textures, because it doesn't have that annoying glare thing going. I tend to like, in general, faithful packs, except for the glass. I aim at a 64x texture pack, although I wouldn't turn my nose up at a 32x pack if one looked good. Anything higher than 64x and my computer starts to resent it (although with the latest linux nvidia 310 driver, that might well change).