u/Admiral251

Are there any aspects of the game where vanilla still beats what modders managed to make?

A lot of those things can be subjective, but I have an example - vanilla trees aren't very impressive (meshes were most likely optimized for consoles), but leaves and branches are fully animated to imitate reaction to the wind.
Many tree mods, even those with millions of downloads, actually downgrade (or perhaps sidegrade) the quality of the trees by removing branch animations. So while those modded trees look much better on static images, in game make things less dynamic. This is because tree animations is relatively new technology for modders, and afaik only Happy Little Trees, Ulvenwald, and Aspens Ablaze have animated branches.

There are plenty of NPC replacers that I like, but most of them use hairstyles that are ports from other games, and they don't fit Skyrim aesthetics. I'm big fan of Vanilla Hair Remake, so I have been thinking how to solve that problem using that replacer.

I have managed to manually replace NPC hairstyle by editing the nif file. The issue is that it's not feasible on large scale. So I have tried to write a script (using NiflySharp) that does it for me. The issue is that in scripted way some nodes copy incorrectly or don't copy at all, and I can't figure out why. This library is extremely niche, so finding help online does not apply here.

I think the best approach would be to do it on runtime, if possible. Perhaps wigs can be used to dynamically replace NPC hairstyle to match the vanilla record? Assuming wigs display properly, and don't act like piece of equipment. This way you can have high quality hand made NPCs, with hairstyle that actually fits the game.

People who are tired of vanilla start use something like Live Another Life or Alternate Perspective, which is valid, I do it myself. But I have an idea for something that keeps the premise of original start, but cuts the length of everything in half.

Instead of having that 10 minute intro with carriage and execution, make player start inside Helgen dungeon, and for example destroy wall inside the cell when Alduin attacks, and then make player join Ralof or Hadvar. There is some wiggle room here how things play out, but just make the player start inside to skip the boring part.