what should the path for the texture be?

/data/textures/"modname"/"texturename" ?

Yeah, that's a pretty common one. Some people use their online alias, especially if they have a lot of mods or do lots of resource packs. There is one issue though if you're doing armour or weapons (can't remember which, I'd have to double check. I think it's weapons.) - you need to keep the top level directory to the way Beth set it up for it to show up properly in the object list in the CS. I think most modders use the same structure for meshes and textures, so if you need to maintain Beth's directory structure for the meshes, you should do the same for your textures.

I take my categories a little deeper,

Data\Textures\Hana\"modname"\"category" such as Architecture, Clutter, Clothes, Weapons, etc.. helps to stay organized.

In most cases in general you have to stay within the original top-level categories. You can't reference any files outside of "Oblivion/data", that's a given, textures outside of "data/textures" is also not going to work, but then most of the object types, like architecture, weapons, clothing/armor items, all have their appropriate top-level folders within "meshes" or "textures", and if you place those files somewhere else, the CS is almost guaranteed to error out. It's very picky with these things. Unfortunately there's no complete list of which object types go where or which of them are even important to keep at their places, but to prevent any possible issues right from the start I always keep things inside their proper folder structure no matter what.

Additional to that I also keep putting "my" files into subfolders inside "DrakeDragon", like "meshes/armor/DrakeDragon/GuardianEquipment/male/..." etc., just so I always know when something's from me or someone else, no matter which of my mods it is.
But that's just my habit and in no way an official rule or something.

edit: Thinking of it now, does this order actually work, Hanaisse? I mean, sure, "textures" likely won't mind, but if you try to use armor "meshes" from anywhere outside of "meshes/armor", didn't the CS always complain then? (making a path like your "meshes/Hana/HanasMod1/armor/..." totally invalid and unusable for the CS?) I think to remember it was that way, but it's been a while I last checked it, so I'm pretty unsure right now.

That's what I was saying in my post, above. Is it armour then? I know that for armour or weapons, you need to honour the top level folder (armor or weapons) and then you can put your stuff under that. For everything else though, you can put everything in a folder for your mod or alias, with the appropriate directories under that.

Don't forget that some "textures" are other image data, and you may have to put them in the standard folders. E.g. anything under Data/Textures/Menus is pretty well only allowed in the one place. So it's a good idea to include mod-specific names for those things, so everyone knows what they are.

Yep, it works just fine. I've never had the CS complain about armor or weapons meshes when put inside my own named folder such as Meshes\Hana\Modname\Armor. In fact, Sutch Village that Arthmoor and I worked on is set up that way for new townguard armor. I like to ensure that everything I make is contained in one spot, makes it easier to install and uninstall all resources without having to search all your folders to get rid of someone's mod.

The only exception I've seen is creature meshes needing to be inside Meshes\Creatures\ for the models to show up in the CS. And trees.

Well, I knew it was several assets where the CS complained when they were not from inside the right folders. Thought armor was one of them, but seems I was wrong.
I guess that's what you get for being "out of it" for over two years now... or maybe the CS even insists only on there being an "armor" folder "anywhere" inside the path?... Wouldn't surprise me too much either, I admit.

But doesn't matter. I only wanted to mention there are certain types of assets the location inside the folder structure cannot be totally random for and some top-level folders inside "meshes" and "textures" have to be used by all means.
I think that point got across. I've never seen a detailed listing which assets have to go into which folders and for which types of assets it is a requirement anywhere so far either, so there's no need for me going into details about things I can't for the life of me recall correctly anymore and just risk ending up having told things wrong. It could be a purpose of this thread for us to collect the types and their required folders we know of though.

Mostly I've always thrown everything under Meshes\Khettienna\[Modname] and Textures\Khettienna\[Modname]. Weapons and armor and everything else.

There are indeed a few things that have to go into specific folders, though:

--The models and animations available for a creature get auto-detected by the CS from only the folder containing the skeleton.nif you've chosen for that creature, but you can use custom folders for this if you've got custom skeleton/animations. If you don't, just a simple retexture or something, use vanilla folders and just put a custom prefix on your models' file names. The textures are pathed in the models and can be in your custom Textures subfolder(s).

--Custom tree leaf textures and landscape textures need to be in Textures\Trees\Leaves and Textures\Landscape, respectively. Landscape textures can be in subfolders, but Tree leaf textures need to be actually in the Trees\Leaves folder, so again unqiue file names are necessary. Tree billboard & bark textures aren't pathed in the CS, and I've never opened a speed tree file to see if they are pathed in the speed tree or just auto-detected by the game, so maybe someone can fill in that blank.

--Menu resources needs to be in certain places. Icons can be in any subfolder or the root of Textures\Menus\Icons, and book images can be in any subfolder or the root of Textures\Menus\Book. Load screens must go in Textures\Menus\Loading, so again unique file names are necessary for new ones.

--Exterior architecture meshes - this isn't a CS thing, just a mod thing, but relevant for many given its popularity - AWLS won't detect AWLS-friendly meshes to light them up if they aren't somewhere under Meshes\Architecture. They can be in any subfolder of that, though.