Q: Recipes don't auto-update.
A: They do. But only the ones added by C.E will be replaced. This requires that omniLib's startup option "autoupdate" is enabled. Researching Efficiency 1 will NOT update vanilla recipes. But researching Efficiency 2 will replace assemblers using Efficiency 1 with the newer recipe.

Q: Steel efficiency doesn't work
A: Steel efficiency, due to limitations of factorio, can only be used in conjunction with a mod that adds a furnace with a recipe selection GUI. such as the ones added by bob's mods.

To set up a custom recipe:
1) add an entry to local refItems matching the item-name.
2) add a technology prerequisite entry to refTechPreq under the same index value as the item done above.
3) add a technology icon to graphics folder with the name set to "efficiency-"..(item-name).png
3b) The photoshop psd file is provided, and other graphics may be used to make your own versions of graphics if you so desire. but be sure to save them outside the mod as well in case updating causes them to be lost. item icon size multiplier used in technology graphics is 130%.
4) in settings-values.lua update refItems, refDefault, and refTechPreq. For each matrix, the numbers much match.
4a) must be the item's internal name. ie: "iron-gear-wheel" is often thought of as just Iron Gears, but "Iron Gears" is not the internal name. you MUST use the internal name.
4b) refDefault is the default setting for the number of techs that will be generated. (max and min are not put here individually). Give it whatever value you'd like the default to be [within range].
5) If the item fails to load, this may be due to mod loading order. an easy test for this is adding the mod's internal name to the optional dependencies list in info.json. This may not fix it...if not...sorry.

This is likely to change in future updates. this is the first iteration of the mod using omniLib and future plans may change, adapt, as i continue working with it.