I'm used to only playing Creative in Vannila and Survival in Modpacks.
I dunno, I hate resource gathering in Vannila but there's no point in creating a giant ass facility for nothing (except in my test world where I test stuff) in Modpacks while you're playing creative.
Unless it is my test world for builds. Then it's cool.
Modpacks give you a reason to go further and after something, they are focused on survival and getting to the point you have a kilometric ton of stuff to do whatever you like.
Vannila gives you inspiration to try to abuse their mechanics (be it a compact bridge builder or several farms for mobs using pistons and hoppers) but you can't really use them.
I guess modpacks give you a reason to rape the Earth of its minerals, mainly because it says "See this thing? Go after it, dude. There's stuff that will help you on the way, but you won't need them, unless they're really useful or needed at that moment.