A small warning.

Teh Mine Server will be down at some point for probably a few days in the next couple of weeks whilst I move and get internet setup at the new place.

Not sure how long internet housemoves and migrations take these days.

I generally agree, especially with the author intent thing, but I think it's fine to enjoy mods as long you don't try to make them replace the core game. I've been playing with the Technic pack and it feels very different. It's just nice to do something new when I'm a bit bored, but I still jump back onto my vanilla games when I feel like it.

Ultra hardcore is interesting though, I don't even really think of it as a mod although it technically is, obviously. If you haven't checked the videos yet, what it does is stop your health from replenishing automatically. The only way to heal is either a golden apple (which now requires gold ingots instead of nuggets) or health potions (which uses a glistering melon, which now requires a gold block instead of a gold nugget). They did two series of it where they attempt to kill the Ender Dragon, then 5+ series where they had 8+ people doing free-for-all or team PvP, Battle Royale style. It's really interesting how you have to play so much differently in those situations, and a lot of the people who do it are very entertaining as well (they're all YouTube users so they all upload the footage of them playing).