A fun mod could be Puke's "Junk Yard Mod", for a Mad Max feel. It doesn't allow any research, you gain technology by colonising planets which all contain ruins.
I'm not sure if it has been upgraded to Gold however.
Ohter people could be interested if you deciede to go in this direction, me for 1.
FQM is what I play most. While I like to play other mods, they just seem sort of empty without the system variety in FQM.
My only complaint (whine) is that there are no other mods built on FQM. So there is little of the gameplay/technology variations that I like about other mods such as P&N. It doesn't look too difficult to combine FQM and P&N, but I just haven't gotten to it yet.