I totally get what you are trying to say here. I have been looking for the perfect "vanilla" modded experience, and I havent found very much. But I have found a absolutly outstanding mod proyect called the "beyond the stars" mod, maybe this isn't exactly what are you looking for, but this is the only mod that centers more in expanding the terraria vanilla experience instead of just blatantly inserting content for the sake of pure content. Other than that the only vanilla centred mods out there that i know are Thorium and Spirit.