I'm pretty happy about the change. My least favorite part of Factorio is the biters, and I generally play with biters on passive, so not having to deal with them much at all is quite nice.

Another thing for gameplay:
The only mod I consider to be vital for my enjoyment of the game is the Long Reach mod. It just smooths out gameplay a ton. You might increase the radius at which you can interact with things in the base game.