Some feedback on EE.
Players on the server went from struggling for resources and dying a lot, to endgame, in about 2 days after hitting EE. Last night I watched a player with Awakened Ichorium and other Thaumcraft endgame items build a 1200 long 3x3 tunnel lined with obsidian in a couple of hours.
There's a nice learning curve and power progression up to EE. But having all the resources you need speeds Thaumcraft, and any other mod, immensely. Two small fixes we did were changing hardened clay from 256 to 1, and banning the recipe for knowledge shards. I'm sure though that there are dozens of other ways EE unbalances an otherwise very nice mod pack.
I guess it might be a difference in how you see the pack. If you just want something to play and beat in a couple of weeks, it's fine. Early struggle and death, mid-game play with little victories, and then EE and a race to the finish line.
For folks setting up servers, i'd suggest thinking about what type you want. For a longer struggle, i think the game plays better without the transmutation tablet. The real shame, is that it overshadows the other mods. Where you might need to progress in Aura, Thaum, or Ars to get certain resources you can now just easily duplicate them once you have it learned.