because that meant always going through a time consuming routine of breaking out all my machines / tools to start mining. By the tme I felt I was set up, I'd have 30 minutes left to play.
Well, the main problem with that setup is the need to bring out your machines every time. If you played on a server with people you knew weren't going to steal your super-modded induction furnaces the moment you logged off, your experience might be a little bit different. (EDIT: That's not to suggest the people here would, but you know what I'm saying. I've played on FoH servers plenty too, and had shit stolen/destroyed as well as had plenty of people I gave free access to any of my shit. It is simply that it isn't a couple of your close friends all working towards a common goal, instead it is 20+ different people you only vaguely know, all doing their own thing, some with a PVP mentality to go with it.)
Not trying to dismiss your argument however, as I know what you are getting at. FTB/Tekkit definitely have an aspect of exactly what you say, and after awhile you do end up automating so much that you wonder why you're playing. But the same thing always happened to me in vanilla too; I would try to build something and wonder why I was spending most of my time mining for materials instead of building. So then I'd go play creative...but we all know that gets boring too. So then I'd go play Tekkit...but that got boring eventually too. The problem with Minecraft is, and always has been, that there is no definitive end goal. You play until you get bored of it, all the time, every time. It doesn't matter what add-ons you include, what machines you build, what tasks you take away from the player (and trust me when I say that finally getting a working sorting system can be every bit as rewarding as anything else I've ever built)...eventually everyone gets bored. There is no way to stop that unless you employ a specific goal, which is actually what the FTB maps (not mod packs) strive to do. They put people together (or a solo player) with limited starting resources and see how long it takes them to complete specific goals.
I actually would suggest if you're bored with building in Minecraft that you check out an FTB challenge map. They are hard. Very, very hard. Insanely hard. Probably too hard for most of us that aren't intricately knowledgeable with all parts of the different mods. But it will at least give you a goal to work towards instead of "Well I built a sweet house, now what?" Because we've all built dozens of sweet houses by now, right?
