I do the same thing, choose majors that I never use so Maxical levels very slowly.

I always install OBSE and OBMM before doing anything else too.

My must have mods:

1. First and foremost is my Khajiit mods for Maxical. She has Desuchan's original Kawa Khajiit that is no longer available. It came pre-packaged with special personality features such as ears that reflect her mood; facial expressions; head tracking; female fight sounds.

2. Player Voice Set "Annah of the Shadows" from Planescape Torment.

3. Personality Idles

4. "See You Sleep"

5. Texian's lighted windows and smoking chimneys

6. All Natural Immersive Windows

7. My own junk to improve player houses and add Inns; better towns; boat trips; (and my retextures)

8. Everything Meo/RileyMarks/Stroti/JBVW/mr_Siika has available. A whole bunch of SubRosa's & Ghastley's mods.

9. Theryon (and everything else FlintOne has avaialable)

I also love and use Shezrie's Towns, especially love her themed taverns and working windows.

Think I gotta add a couple mods from SubRosa´s list there

One advantage of using mods developed by those here, is that there are development threads that tell you a lot about the mod before you even try it.

No need to download each separately. Vorians has just updated the compilation pack:

http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/19370/

So these are all pretty much final. (There are some WIPz still ongoing I believe). If you're using WB, you just install the ones you want - it has a wizard, but I just go with the tickboxes. I don't really find any of them truly terrible, but some are a bit meh, I agree. OTOH, I think there are a few essentials in there, like The Eastern Peaks and Chorrol Hinterland. The two I definitely don't run are Imperial Isle, because it results in patches on top of patches, there's so much stuff going on round there; and Bravil Barrowfields, because the FPS plummets for me with Better Cities running.