ooh god, that image alone is already worth downloading the mod...
though it sounds a bit like @
Vazkii new mod called Botania with the plant essence
I'd rather change quartz block totem to a hopper totem, if you find that fitting. as I don't really see the connection between quartz and picking items up...
how about also have some sort of bonemealing totem, perhaps with different effects. one could speed up growth, the other could cause plants and flowers to grow nearby, another would make animals/villagers mature faster or another that would boost nearby furnaces and machines, if you're considering mod support
you could also have a totem that'll make nearby entities breed (perhaps make it funny and actually have zombies be able to breed aswell
)
for the cactus totem, how about having it a bit different, perhaps 2 kinds of totems. one kills nearby entities for experience, and the other totem kills nearby entities for their loot.
with that you could have another totem that absorbs the experience and does something special with it (maybe another type of essence) and the totem that kills entities for their loot could have a tier 2, which will make the totem kill entities as if they were killed by a player.
if these ideas are not relevant to the mod, you can ignore them if you want...