I'm assuming the merged patch is a merger of all levelled lists, and that it can be replaced by the bashed patch using Gary Bash. I'm also assuming that they shouldn't be ran together, correct? The only reason I'm asking is because the merged patch can be merged under the bashed patch, which made me realize I really have no clue what these things are :celebration:

Well, basically, a bashed patch is some sort of intelligent merged patch.
You can, for example, use a naming scheme from mod 1 while using the damage-stats from mod 2.

But the best and probably most useful example still is Project Beauty. No matter the load order, Fallout's NPCs will always have the hair and faces of PB, even if another mod overrides them.

A bashed patch, is a lot harder to configure though. Plan some time for tinkering in FO3Edit and tweaking your bash-tags...

And concerning leveled lists: merged patch basically just merges them alltogether, while in Garybash you can define some mods as Delevelers, which means they remove items from the list.

I especially like the inventory sorter feature, whereas stimpaks and chems always stay ontop of my inventory. then weapons and armor. and so on.

just have a look here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes4Mod:Wrye_Bash/Bashed_Patch
Some features from garybash are missing, but you'll get the point.

Thanks, that helped a lot

What I don't get is that previously I was running both the merged patch and the bashed patch with levelled lists seemingly without any spawn issues. Did the bashed patch just overwrite the merged patch?

The bashed patch did the same thing as the merged patch, so there's no reason to use both. I prefer the bash patch because it is configurable, but for a beginner I would recommend using the FO3Edit merged patch. Just remember that neither one is perfect and making your own patch may create issues.

Yeah if you merged the merged patch into the bashed patch probably no great harm would happen.

It is worth it to learn Wrye/Gary Bash though because on top of a more intelligent and controlled merging of LL feature you also get http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1084204-bain-mod-installation-projects/. Not that FOMM is shabby by any means, but BAIN has some tight features worth checking out.