Is there a mod that makes Vvardenfell stop looking like Silent Hill? I've seen videos of one, but it's nowhere to be found and I don't want all the other stuff that's included in MGE.

There's Morrowind FPS Optimizer, but it only goes like 2x times original view distance.

What you don't like about MGE? You are not forced to enable all these shaders, grass etc. Distant Land only makes the view distance better (configurable) and changes water.

That's the thing I don't like about it. I don't want new water. I like the original water just fine.

You will have to use FPSO then, as you can't disable the new water. The 2.0 version can be buggy, so you're probably better off with 1.96. It will be just like MW, but with a little more visibility.