Although I am planning on using MoveTo from an empty cell to place all my bosses, statics, etc in the Tamriel worldspace, I placed them in their target cells to get a better idea of the positioning I'd need. Of course, even after removing them again, the cells are flagged as edited.

After doing some research, it seems that there is currently no safe way to remove edited cells from a mod. TESVSnip apparently scrambles your ESP file and kills your dog. There doesn't seem to be any other tool right now that's complete enough to mess with compressed records.

Am I going to have to create a new ESP and recreate all my spells, quests, and other stuff to fix this? Please tell me there's a better way...

You can use the CK's "http://www.creationkit.com/View_only_Mod_records" window to undo dirty edits, can't you? I know it works for things like deleting quest edits, but haven't tried it for cell edits.

I have used the CK to clean a cell edit from a mod. If you're worried about it messing up your mod, make a backup first.

Huh. If it's that simple, then why all the kerfuffle over TESVSnip? Why isn't everyone using the Details window, then?

I always make backups. I've had the CK crash while saving too often (well, twice, but both times after major edits) to not be extremely paranoid about it...

Because the details screen is pretty unforgiving, not user friendly, and will crash the CK if you delete navmeshes using it.

TES5Edit is well underway, and Gecko is coming along nicely too, both of which are far more user friendly and aren't prone to the corruption bugs that exist in the current TESVSnip.

i'd prefer the terms "gruesome" and "user assaulting"

I don't think using the Details window in the CK is all that bad, it's just clunky. 3rd party editors are just a lot more powerful. It's sort of like the difference between using a text editor and a word processor. Tbh, it's a wonder the devs don't polish up the Details window a bit. It could be a lot more useful than it is.

I use the Details window a lot and the worst part is learning how to use it. It's pretty apparent after a few minutes that it is almost deliberately set up a as poorly as possible. The one column of information that means the most is the one column set up to be hidden. Its puzzling to say the least. The next big lesson is to realize it is moderately unpredictable. Focus on your task and don't try to accomplish too much at once. And test it often. You might not know its fubared right away.

Well thank you all for the info and advice! What I'll probably do is hold off on this until EM is closer to completion, then check on the status of TESVGecko and related tools. If nothing else is ready, I'll try to kill the dirty cells through the Details window. Worse comes to worst, I'll publish with some dirty cells and a warning.