BC gates have always been one of the best parts of BC to be honest. Why on earth look for an alternative for something awesome.
I just wish more/all mods would add gate conditions to their machines. Even if you perhaps don't use pipes to transfer items or power, you can do so creative and powerful stuff with the gates with the machines that do support it.
One thing I would LOVE to see though was Pipe Wires that did not have to be placed on pipes. So you could place them on normal blocks but still bridge to wires on pipes. Of course you would need to be able to place all 4 colours in the same block space. Maybe make a 4 coloured "bundled cable" with similar mechanics to the RP2/Project Red wires. Now THAT would be awsome and bring the gates into a whole new level of usefulness!
EDIT: well guess this would not be all that different than running pipe wire on structure pipe, but would still be nice if it was just a flat wire and not something that took up the entire block.