Honestly man, depending on how long its been since you played, the modpacks may not have changed super much. There's a few standouts every year or two but its gotten a bit stagnant.

Gregtech NE is less a game and more of a lifestyle choice as you've kinda noticed. Monifactory is super similar and still a hell of an undertaking but will take you dramatically less hours to progress (still a lot). If you want to go simpler than that, I was a big fan of Stoneblock 4, it mostly revolves around one giant fairly interesting multiblock structure that you upgrade over time.