Random non-specific wishlist item: I hope we have some early-ish game items for fast by-hand mining. I enjoy the splunking bits of the early game, but if I want to make even a medium sized underground base, taping my mouse button down while I stare at a wall of plain stone is not a fun booster. Tinker's was nice-ish for that. I also miss the diamond drills from earlier industrialcraft (e.g. pre titanium and nonsense that made them unnecessarily late game items). BC fillers *tried* to fill this niche afaict, but they honestly spent a lot of time being just too weird and hassle-filled.
If you really want drills, you could use RFDrills: http://www.curse.com/mc-mods/minecraft/229846-rfdrills Very similar to the classic IC2 drills (and chainsaws), except, well, RF-powered.
Tinkers' is sufficient for all by-hand mining, to the point of being a little OP. You can make very good tools and weapons with cheap stuff like Osmium, which is just as good as steel as a tool material, even though steel is supposed to be difficult to make and/or expensive. I never had to make a high oven because of this. As long as the MPT keeps check on that a bit, TiC is a great mod to have, it was always one of my favourites.
That's what I figured. I wanted a replacement for TiC but there aren't really enough mods to really cover all tiers from what I've seen. Plus tools sort of take a back seat once you reach a certain level.
Well I found a moderatly decent replacment. Not as good however, Redstonic mod looks decent enough. http://www.curse.com/mc-mods/minecraft/227716-redstonic
