Flan's Plane's mod and the Zeppelin mod were undoubtedly my two favorite mods, closely followed by buildcraft, I am so sad that the modders have not been able to update past 1.2.5 yet

I built the majority of a 1:1 scale replica model of the WWII USS Enterprise CV-6 from inspiration from Flan's Plane's mod. Speaking of that, I want to continue with building that...
Back on topic, I am going to think of how to implement these mods, and other mods, without the presence of a mod turning newer and more casual players away from the server. This could truly be awesome if done effectively.