I agree with that.
JSGME saves a lot of trouble in adding/removing mods!
It is a very helpful tool indeed.

4.4 gigabytes in data folder and 500 megabytes in mods folder.

data Folder: 7,12 GB !

Best regards,
Magic

But JSGME can't change node entries inside a .dat file, it has to replace the whole .dat .sim .eqp. .cfg .dsd and .val file. Thus the modder loses any previous changes to those files , but he still has the back-up, because the whole file is replaced.

That is what I meant by "making them compatible is not much different from doing all the same work manually on the files already in the game."

Many if not most of the mods I use overwrite the same files, I just modify them before enabling the new files to make them compatible. By which I mean I make sure that they include any changes already done by previously enabled mods whose effects I don't want to lose. Basically I just take the files already in the game (which have already been modified by previously enabled mods) and add the new mod's changes to them as needed, and then save those new files to a modified version of the new mod.

The difference is that by enabling those new files with JSGME, I can take them out again in one fell swoop if I want to and revert to whatever was in the game beforehand. I don't have to go in and open every single file that was modified and edit out the changes again one by one. If necessary I can disable every single mod I use with one click and revert back to my original files and start over completely - as opposed to creating a brand new installation, or copying over huge batches of backup files.

It's really a matter of personal preference. The work you do directly to the game files, I do outside of the game folder and then drop in using JSGME... because if I change something in the game I want the ability to undo those changes as easily as possible. JSGME provides that option. The amount of manual editing I do to make everything I want to use work together takes up enough time, I'm not going to spend more of it creating hundreds of backup files every step of the way or log every single change somewhere when JSGME will do the bulk of that work for me.