So the game crashes at odd times. Rivet city bridge swinging -> crash. Iron sights shooting at someone -> crash. Jumping -> crash...

It will also consistently crash when quitting to main menu from the game

Windows 7, running in xp compatability mode

Mods installed

I suspect there is something wrong with my load order, but I can't remember how exactly each mod is supposed to sit in relation to one another.

Also, if any of these mods are known to be unstable (alone or in combination), please say so.

Oh yes, your load order is screwed up beyond beleif. Get BOSS, and sort your mods.

Then get Wrye Bash for FO3 and make a Bashed Patch to get your mods to work together once you have sorted them.

Thank you, the quit to menu crash doesn't occur now. I suspect it occured due to the sheer quantity of mods I had activated.

Time should tell for the other crashes. Probably over the course of the next day.

I seem to be hovering just under the limit for number of mods that my machine will tolerate before crashing. Is there any practical way to merge mods that wrye flash would normally refuse to? (No doubt this is a very risky undertaking if possible)

I think you can still merge mods in the editor. The old fashioned way.

However, your mod list is not that large, have you cleaned your DLCs with FO3Edit? That can help with mods that have dependencies on the DLCs. Just make sure to clean them in order of release, one at a time. Even then, this game will just CTD every few hours. It can help to not overwrite save slots, and stop using the Autosave features. The last certainly helps with cell loads and crashes related loading a new cell.

Also, if you FT to a cell and it crashes repeatedly, then travel to a nearby cell and walk to it.

Also, I got around the Max level issue by just setting my character level lower in the console. I kept my skills and Perks, it just removed some of my experience points so I can still level up, and hear that noise as I discover a new place.

Well it took the better part of the afternoon, but I have removed the quit to menu crash. Hopefully the other crashes will mostly vanish, aside from the inevitable ones.

You have to remember, adding mods to a game is not like adding MP3's to a playlist. You are recoding the game's programming, just in modular form.

So, it's a trick to get all the code to work together and have a functioning game.