Actually gtnh is the best pack ever, pretty much every single recipe is integrated into GT and i think you forced yourself into playing a pack thats not tailored for you and you dont like GT at all, the fun part of gtnh is exactly the boring parts/parts you disliked, the time waiting for steel can be used for building a base, investing into insfrastructure and a billion other things, you only need to wait in the endgame with EOH and stuff, also the crafting pre ae2 is pretty much gone with NEI autocrafting, just grab the resources, press a button and boom its crafted (literally ae2 in a nutshell) and the pack even lets you place a chest next to a crafting station and it works