I've discovered this leveling mod which seemed to be closest to the way in which I wanted the game to work. The mod itself starts up fine, as long as you use the individual StartScript Gals__New_Character command rather than the .esp provided. I'm using the Hard version.
However, while the skills and attributes react, the character doesn't level up. For my current level 1 character, after a week of practicing his skills, the tooltip shows that I've had 22 skill increases out of 200 (a new game shows 0/200, just like Galsiah shows 0/32000, but Galsiah doesn't have a visible progress bar).
I've scoured the mod's readme but it seems to have no information on leveling or such an issue. Does anyone have experience with the mod or any clue what be going wrong here?
Edit: This is the link on Morrowind Modding history:
http://mw.modhistory.com/download-37-15001