Yea I think SH3 would be a good starting piont.
Most of the issues have been hammered out and there are alot of mods to suit it to your taste.
Let me make one recommendation that the others will not. Install the game, get the offical patches, and play it un modded for a while. That way you will get not only a feel for what you might want to change but you will know what it was like before the mods.
Lastly once you get the game installed and running and decide to try some mods get yourself JSGME (Jones Soft Generic Mod Enabler) and learn how to use it.
Good luck !
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