Originally posted by GunsForBucks:

Textures for things up close I do not find bad... I rarely even notice and don't tend to keep zoomed in all the way. The environment is beautiful without any mods.
The textures are for when zoomed in .. but frankly even if I did like modding I wouldn't put the strain on my machine for the visual and rather have in game performance/movement smoothness.

I feel completely the opposite. The HD texture packs totally transform the game for me, and I find it hard to play without them.

They also claim to actually improve performance. I haven't analyzed that in detail, but I run at 4k with a 4k texture pack, and it runs as well as with the low-res default textures.

I wouldn't necessarily lump a texture pack in with other mods either. It's really just replacing one set of images for another, so the chances of it breaking the game is pretty small, unlike other mods that change the game code.