Myself and a couple friends put nearly a month into expert mode before our server unfortunately crashed beyond repair - not sure if it was due to the draconic reactor explosion or something else but our last functioning backup was a couple days old and given how close we were to 'finishing' and planning to restart anyway for introducing some new players to modded FTB it seemed a sign.
I'd put down a list of goals once we had RFtools started, including things like:
Full Draconic Gear for each (more expensive than i expected and surprisingly the dense emerald was the last component needed
Draconic Reactor (that turned out well...)
Maxed draconic storage (woo solar/wind power)
Creative Cell/Tank/Mana Pool. We had a couple cells and could create the next 2 within 24 hours realtime, all mats ready for tank and just needed 2 more pearls for the pearl with a prepared altar. A shame really.
We didn't finish the last 2... which is a little unfortunate
What I enjoyed about this pack was how much I used other mods that I tended to not touch, particularly magic mods -
Botania 'isn't' that bad, but was a constant source of frustration at every turn as we never dedicated to it. The gaia guardian toys were really fun - oh how I love the key / FATE ripoff. The empowered gaia guardian was an absolute monster before we knew anything about him (and having various gear such as soularium jetplate, longfall boots, etc. unenchanted) and we barely managed it, only managing due to there being 2 of us and the second guy after dying throwing red hearts into hte arena for me to eat to regen until i could get enough hits on him. From then on I brought notch apples to dangerous things. We didn't find a mana source we were truly happy with until long after it was important (god bless kekimuru's!), but in the future I imagine cake farms will be our go-to for mid to late game botany.
Blood Magic was a mod I'd done notable amounts of in the past, prior to demon invasion. My opinion of the mod didn't really change, but we did all that stuff this time around. Arcane blocks made this a pain at first but we got accustomed to making them.
I despise thaumcraft. Doing nearly all of it didn't change that, the only good part about it was the thaumic energistics. This was my third or fourth attempt at it, too.
Witchery was fun, very quirky.
Other notables things were...
This was our first play with RF-tools dimensions, very easy and quite enjoyable although we are always hesitant with the server load (we ended up with about 15 RFtools dimensions based on various adjustments, on top of the usual nether, end, TF, outerlands, spirit realm?, others i probably forget). Extremely powerful tech and I can see why it was all gated endgame. Had previously used some of hte RF monitoring + endergenic generators but that was it prior. Yet to use the forcefield tech (due to cost on this server, generally).
Always avoided Steve's carts and will still likely avoid it. Setting up a tree farm wasnt that bad and it was a pretty cool little thing when it worked, but I never intend to make large amounts of enhanced galgadorian blocks again. First time I've ever made a ghast spawner, admittedly.
Runic dungeons continues to be a promising yet in my opinion not ready for main-ftb packs mod. It's a complete beta right now and should probably solve issues like the mass duplication of their 'witherproof' blocks, block protection, etc. Looking forward to dungeon tiers too.
First time using conduits 'properly' (block sharing), was pretty snazzy.
We hit awkward road blocks as the book wasn't working when we started. Waiting for the AE seed etc. the day after we prepared all the other stuff, horses, so on.
It was nice to build an IC2 reactor again, if only to produce plutonium.
Overall, I hope they consider doing a pack like this again in the future (maybe 1.8.9?). It'd be great to re-do with some possibly new set of mods. We had tried daybreaker before, but being experienced with mekanism it didn't last long.