Once Curse is back up, check out BuildCraft. It's loving amazing. :o
You can make pipes to transport stuff from chests, you can build automatic mining wells and quarries, and much more. :D
There are a couple addons for it that I think are must-haves.
1. Redstone Timers or whatever it's called, it's linked in the topic. Basically it's a bunch of spinning timers for redstone that you can change the intervals on. Also has NOR gates and some other stuff.
It's essential for BuildCraft because it's built off of pulses. You need to pulse redstone current to stuff.
2. Redstone pipes. When an item goes through it, it will power redstone. :D