Warning: Wall of Text following. tl;dr at the bottom. I'll try to break it up into sections as much as possible.

Hi! Since Skyrim's release, I have had quite a deal of fun with it. Recently, however, my game finally became, I believe, to glitchy and unstable to play. I have tried a great deal to cut down on the problems, but I have been mostly unsuccessful and I finally decided it'd be best to start over, hopefully creating a stable but still fun game. Thus, I call upon you, fantastic community of the Bethesda Game Studios Forums! Help me (Please )

First, I've grown tired of my enb settings (I have previously been using Sharpshooters Extreme Graphics Vision ENB http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/15105, and it was fun, but it was a bit over the top for my taste. In the middle of the day, the snow could be absolutely blinding). Unfortunately, the vanilla skyrim visuals at times simply make me sick. This time, I'm looking for a much more gritty, realistic Skyrim that can still produce those "Wow!" moments when the occassion arises. Something that makes dungeons frightening, gives me some dark to be scared of. Something that just looks more... real. I've been thinking about using the STEP (Skyrim Total Enhancement Project), but the last update was on May 7th. Is this still a good source of graphical improvement and change to Skyrims visual theme?

My last character was my first full on mage in any of TES game, and I'm still debating whether or not to use the console to instantly boost my new character's magic skills to that of my old's so I don't feel like I lost all the progress I made. That's up for debate, and I'd love your input on this.

I've also been doing my best to give Skyrim a sort of FCOM feel. I like the simple, subtle addition of the massive amounts of monsters and items. How, if done well, the new additions fuse into the game so much I have to ask my friends if a certain item or foe is in the vanilla version or not. That experience is one I look for significantly in mod hunting. For me, mods that include this for skyrim include the following:

Skyrim Monster Mod - I've never really had any problems with this one.
Deadly Dragons - I like the standard and armory plugins, not so much the spells. It gives dragon fights more exitement and variety I felt vanilla Skyrim severely lacked.
Armoury of Tamriel - It seperates the material and the design of many items of the game. I like this, and it simply adds a huge amount of variety to Skyrim.
Cloaks of Skyrim - Overhauls the game much more than one would think, and necessarry in my book.
Jaysus Swords and Weapons of the Third Era - Simply more variety added to the game. I enjoy the unique designs of mnay of the weapons added by these mods.
Dovakriid: the Dragon Lords - It only adds 10 dragons, but it really adds that "oh crap" feeling when you hear a dragon roar.

If possible I would like to get all of these mods to work well together and with what else I add to the game. They are a cruscial part for me in feeling that the world of Skyrim is still a mystery. The next three mods I would greatly prefer to have working as well, (especially the second one) but I'm much more tentative about them.

Warzones - Adds fun, huge battles to Skyrim. Many times, the battles feel huge, dynamic, and like they're part of the landscape. They fit right in with the civil war and what's occuring in Skyrim. Other times, however, the battles feel totally out of place and just odd. I'm also called to wonder about this mods compatability with others since it covers so much of the map, and I have had reasons to suspect it for some of my crashes in the past.

Monster Wars - I'm really looking for feed back on this one. For those of you that have played it, how stable is it? This is mainly the mod that caused me to start over. I saw this, saw videos of it, and my first instict was that I had to have it. It appears to add huge variety to Skyrim, often in the form of just terriffying bosses. I was not, however, ever able to get this to work in a stable game. Before installing this mod, my Skyrim was fairly stable. Afterwars, however, everything appeared to just go downhill. After installing the mod, I would always crash as soon as I stepped foot outside. I hunted down and determined that it conflicted with about 4 of my other mods, oddly enough they had no clear assosciation with eachoter. After disabling and uninstalling the mods, I was able to get my game up and running. It would just crash too much, however. I can't play a Skyrim that can crash as soon as I cast a spell, or maybe loot a monster, or transfer zones, or talk to someone... You guys know what I mean. I really want this to work, but I am skeptical.

ASIS - I never tried this one out. I still don't think I'm 100% sure what it does, but on the surface it looks like a good change. What do you think?

Basic Gameplay Changes: I previously had Skyrim redone installed in my game. I very much liked the new magic perk trees and some of the spells it added, but there were some things about ti that constantly bugged me. I felt like the perk trees were simply too massive, with some perks having up to 10 levels. It didn't feel like it expanded the perk system as much as simply prolonged character progression at times. I REALLY enjoyed how it assosciated speech with shouts, though. I finally didn't hate speech in a TES game! All in all, which would you guys recomment? ACE? Skyrim Redone? A different one? What about for a magic user? A jack-of-all-trades hybrid?

What other mods do you guys recommend for a magic user? A player in general? These can include basically any sorts of mods. I'm looking for housing, landscape, combat, etc! I know there are many threads out there for the magic aspect of this already, and I assure you I am looking. Feel free to post any further mods you enjoy, however.

This post is getting WAY longer than I anticipated now, so i better wrap it up. Here's my mod list from my last game.

Does anything stick out to you? Any big red flags or points of interest? What mods are worth keeping, and what mods should I remove from my game? Any other suggestions for mods are greatly appreciated, I'm just looking for a good place to start and expand upon, while keeping my game relatively stable.

Final point. I'm currently using Wrye Bash to install my mods. Any suggestions on the installation of mods itself? I've been using the bashed patch always of course. I've been seeing a lot of talk on the forums about cleaning mods lately. Should I begin cleaning the mods before installing them? I cleaned mods I installed during oblivion, but at the beginning of this install I just could not find any software to accomplish the task. Anything else I can be doing to minimize crashes?

tl;dr
1. I need your help!
2. STEP, yes or no? Any recommendations of visual enhancements for Skyrim?
3. Warzones and/or Monster Wars, yes or no? ASIS? How can I obtain maximum compatability between these mods and others?
4. Skyrim Redone, ACE, or other developmental mods?
5. Combat/magic changes. What do you recommend?
6. Other random mods you recomment
7. What mods in my old list should I attempt to keep (assuming they're compatable of course), and what should I scrap?
8. (Not included above yet) Audio: What mods can improve the sound quality and sounds of Skyrim? Like the Sounds of Skyrim Project?
9. Any advice for the mod installation process itself? I'm always eager to learn new things to help stablize my game!

Thank you so much for all the help. I'm exhausted now, and I must catch some sleep. I'll try to update this and respond to your suggestions. I appreciate the help greatly!

I recommend this mod: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12506/

Totally unbiased opinion.*

*Lack of bias not guaranteed.

Arthmoor has made many good mods for Skyrim, and He is using the current CK to create his mods. All of his mods also include the long forgotten file called a Readme.
I am paranoid about using many mods made without the CK because of bugged Scripts, stick with constantly updated mods. If You choose to use a mod that has not been updated recently, watch what the mod adds to the game. A Mesh and Texture Replacer (Body Mods, SMIM) will cause less problems than a mod that has quests that are using bad Scripts. Animations mods that use replacements for default Animation files still cause "Why am I having issues while in combat on a Horse" threads.
If You are not using Wrye Bash yet, then start. BAIN is the best method to control when one mod can overwrite another. BAIN does not erase the overwritten mod resources when another similiar mod is uninstalled either.