So I'm returning to Oblivion after a pretty long break and a formatted HDD. Let's make sure I'm not missing anything that I really should have. If any of these have become outdated or substandard, or can be streamlined, please let me know:

Utilities:
[0] Wrye Bash
[1] OBMM
[2] BOSS
[3] OBSE
[4] OBGE
[5] TES4LODGen
[6] Crash Prevention System
[7] Streamline

UI/Beautification:
[10] QTP3 Redimized
[11] AEVWD
[12] Whatever custom body/face/hair/beard mods that don't make my Dunmer look like an androgynous Japanese teenager
[13] DarkUId DarN
[14] Color Map Mod
[15] Unique Landscapes Complete
[16] Natural Environments
[17] Book Jackets
[18] AWLS
[19] Emperor's Face Done

Gameplay:
[20] FCOM OR Fran's - Last time I played with FCOM, I felt like I was stuck running around Lake Reman for too long. I don't know if this was just me, but I'd be willing to give OOO another go. What's the difference between FCOM and just Fran's by itself?
[21] Open Cities OR Better Cities (depending on FPS and personal taste)
[22] Deadly Reflex 6
[23] Leveling Mod - Any suggestions? I like the default TES leveling system (minus the dynamic leveling and horrible leveled lists, of course). Whatever would bring Oblivion's leveling closest to Morrowind's would be ideal, but the Monkey God's leveling mod is pretty nice too.
[24] Magicka Overhaul - I'm thinking of going with Supreme Magicka Update, but I honestly haven't done a whole lot of research here. Suggestions?
[25] Living Economy - or really economy mod, really. Again, suggestions?
[26] Denock Arrow
[27] UOP
[28] USIP
[29] UOMP

Quests:
To be honest, I have no idea what quest mods are popular or well-built. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Full VO a plus but not necessary.

That's all I can think of for now. f there are any glaring omissions, feel free to slap me upside the head.

I would also suggest using Oblivion Stutter Remover, and - assuming you have enough RAM, and a 64-bit OS - the 4GB patch for Oblivion.exe as well. Fast Exit 2, also.



Recommendation: RAEVWD instead. Much better, IMO. Up to date, too.



I believe this one might be a little out of date. But then again, maybe not, and even if so, it mightn't matter overly much.

Strongly suggest checking out All Natural, for weather and lighting in general. It's fantastic.



I love Fran's, but am currently using full FCOM (++). Worth a try. Or maybe OOO+MMM for something a little different? Or even ROM?



nGCD + Progress. Realistic Levelling is also good.



LAME. You can use it alongside SM, if that appeals.



Enhanced Economy.


Make sure you get Cobl as well.

Things to get:

• Weather All Natural - you can still use Natural Environments alongside
  
• Map Marker Overhaul
  
• Enhanced Economy - forget about Living Economy
  
• nGCD and Progress - for leveling
  
• RAEVWD - not AEVWD
  
• Oblivion Stutter Remover (OSR)
  
• If you go with OOO, Denock Arrow is included

Quests

• The Ayleid Steps
  
• Kragenir's Death Quest - OOO makes it kind of annoyingly tough when it doesn't intend to be, because of the fixed-level baddies in quest locations
  
• Gates of Aesgaard 1 & 2 - also get quest delayers for these
  
• Let The People Drink - short, early quest with a wonderful architectural reward that you can enjoy throughout the rest of the game
  
• Windfall
  
• Blood & Mud
  
• A Brotherhood Renewed - if you want to play the Dark Brotherhood storyline

Check the pinned FAQ topic, it contains some important links and lists of quest mods.
the first link in my sig also contains links to cool mods.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1146510-good-ui-mod-for-widescreen

DarNified UI or its DarkUI version gets mentioned frequently.

13. :yes:

Hehe.

I know a lot of people swear by it, but the crash prevention system isn't something I'd consider safe to use. Maybe if you find yourself in a pinch or something, but leaving it running as a regular thing just doesn't sit well.

Thanks for the tip. What don't you like about it? Your status as a modder is just this side of demigod, so if you can't recommend something, I'm all ears.

And in general, thanks you guys. Keep the suggestions coming, so far the advice has been given much more freely than I expected.

One other thing I think might be worth mentioning: A pretty major complaint from most parties regarding the differences in Morrowind and Oblivion is the lack of political intrigue in the latter. The entire feel of Morrowind's political climate is much more pervasive and underhanded and is, in my most humble opinion, far superior. Have any mods attempted a large-scale overhaul to try and bring Oblivion more in line with its predecessors in this regard?

http://www.fileplanet.com/215436/210000/fileinfo/The-Elder-Scrolls-IV:-Oblivion---The-Elder-Council-Mod-v2.5 adds quite a bit of political intrigue. To run it you will also need http://www.fileplanet.com/215268/210000/fileinfo/The-Elder-Scrolls-IV:-Oblivion----Cyrodiil-Upgrade-Resource-Pack-Mod and http://www.fileplanet.com/215490/210000/fileinfo/The-Elder-Scrolls-IV:-Oblivion---CUO-Resource-Pack-Patch-v2.6. Alternatively, if you don't mind massive downloads there is a compilation of mods by this author: http://www.fileplanet.com/216598/210000/fileinfo/The-Elder-Scrolls-IV:-Oblivion---Giskards--Cyrodiil-Upgrade-Mod-Pack

It's the hobbyist programmer in me. The whole idea of forcing a program to keep running when it's encountered a memory error of some sort just grates on me. My feeling in situations like this is the game wants to crash, you're far better off letting it than taking the chance of some corrupt data getting saved instead. It's the sort of utility you should only use as a last resort - ie: Persistent crash getting into a certain area that the plugin will get you past long enough to continue.

It's also not a universal thing. It can only deal with what it's been designed to solve. So you can still get plenty of crashes that won't be handled. IMO, you're probably better off with OSR. If you have a 64bit OS, use the LAA patch and some tweaking in OSR to raise the memory ceiling and you'll find that 99.9% of all crashes go away.

OCPS is good to prevent persistent crashes, but if they are mod related it is useless.
It may corrupt a savegame and if you hear a system sound from windows it means that OCPS prevented a crash. In this case you should quit the game yourself and reload, thing that makes useless the crash prevention.
I personally keep it loaded only because it prevents the CTD when I quit on the main menu or when I load another save (but in this second case I don't think it is safe either).
For secuity reasons I set Streamsave to save automatically every 120 seconds.
Other thing to keep in mind: when you die, quit entirely the game, then start it again. It is a pain to start the game entirely, but you'll have less CTDs. It is tested and more than a person could second this (it has been told to another thread, but I don't remember which one).

As leveling mods I use nGCD and Progress together. I've never been disappointed by this combo.
Magic: LAME is the way to go in my opinion. I also play with SM, for some new scripted spells, but I considered more than a time to drop it because of some redundance with LAME.
Speaking about overhauls, there is a http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/820948-scaling-overhaul-comparison/page__hl__overhaul+comparison which could help. I personally suggest you OOO+MMM for an immersive experience. If you want a random scaling, you could try Fran's. If you want unscaled, but near to Vanilla, I suggest TIE, or CUO. CUO is also modular and if you want to use only some features from it, you could consider to use only the "CLEAN" esps.

EDIT: Important question: What kind of character do you want to play?

Major necromancy here, but I'm just getting around to finally setting this up and I want to make sure I've got a good start. Everything that's been mentioned has been incorporated.

And to answer Masterplan's question, I usually play a sneaky thief/assassin type character. Dark elf.

I dont know if companions are to your taste - IMHO the most excellent companion ever made for TES series by Emma http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28977

Emma and CDCooley have been working on it over a year now, fully voiced, very well tested.

Edit: forgot to mention http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35397 might suit your character.