The official sea block mod pack listed FNEI and helmod as dependencies, which can be annoying for recipe book/factory planner users. I think these type of mods (there might be more, if I missed them) can be moved to optional dependencies, since I feel like the intended sea block experience (aka the other mods in the pack) are not really affected by which recipe or calculator mod I use.

The pack mod does nothing on it's own. It's just a list of dependencies. The purpose of it is a fast way to enable all the mods in the pack. Optional dependencies don't automatically get downloaded or enabled.

Feel free to not use FNEI. That's completely fine! 🙂 You can disable it without any issue.

I've discussed this with people before and I'm set that what we have is the best option, considering Factorio's limited support for mod packs.