I may be wrong but I don't believe that skydye is trying to dictate how people ought to mod. I believe he's trying to say that modders should stop and think about whether a large texture is necessary for a given mesh. If that is in fact what he's saying then I think that is a valid point to consider.

self edit.

I've cleared all my post as Unnecessary. As my whole point which was stated in error.

I no longer have an opinion on the topic.

Well, it's a good discussion, but I do believe texture modders should have some sort of system like the one I posted above, it can be very helpful.

I agree on your list, but to other modders out there think about file size. The larger a texture is the bigger the file size, so only use big textures when you know you need to. Reducing file size reduces time waiting while downloading the mod. B)

If anyone's interested, I made a http://webpages.charter.net/manauser/morrowind/files/TextureSizeTester.zip, to help answer this question. It's a giant DDS file with Mip Maps in different colors. You apply it too a model, and see what color it shows up when you stand close to it in the game. I did some quick tests and here's what I found:

Hlaalu Silt Strider Port: Goes all the way to 4096 if you put your nose right against it, 1024 is used when standing on it looking down, or looking at the side from a couple feet away.
Desele's uhh "Earthly Delights": 1024, at most, standing right next to her.
A gold coin: 32 (that's right, 32) normally. 64 if you put it on a shelf right at eye-level.

I don't mind large textures.

Though I would of thought 1024 was big enough. If someone wants to use bigger and believes the difference is significant then what's wrong with that? In the end it's up to the user to decide whether to download or not :shrug:

The reason I like big textures is because you can go as close as a few centimeters away from the object and still see lots of detail.

Locked by request.