Alright, found a *tiny* bug with adding new media content- i.e., icons, meshes, or textures. See, with alot of these mods, the mesh (the NIF files) refer to, say, black_hair001.tga when the texture is actually a dds file. This is no problem on the PC version, as it doesn't care about the extension, only the filename- it'll first look for the bmp version, then tga, then dds. On the XBox version, the filename to the texture referenced in the mesh *must* be absolutely correct, even the extension. So, you need to get this program called TESRenamer (available
here ), follow the instructions, and it'll solve the problem for you.
Another thing, before merging the ESP files with the mega ESM, if it has new creatures that can spawn in the wilderness, you'll want to get a program that's called a Leveled List Merger (available above, or google it up). Run that on all the plugins you plan on incorporating, and then merge 'em. It should work.
I'll test all this out better over the next couple of days, and post my results. When I'm finished, I'll write up a tutorial on it and submit it. Until then, anyone aspiring to add mods themselves should be able to just follow the progress made so far and succeed just as well.
I'd also like to note that I've tried about a dozen mods so far. While I haven't really done a whole lot of playtesting, I have gone through the areas affected by various mods, and everything seems well. A word of caution, however (this applies more in this situation than normal, as reversing the installation of a bad plugin is harder than normal)- READ THE REVIEWS FOR ANY PLUGINS YOU DOWNLOAD OVER AT MWSUMMIT (OR AN EQUIVILENT SITE). If everyone says it's buggy, then it's probably not a good idea to use it. It's your time used, however, so if you really want to, go ahead.
EDIT: To clairify, DDS textures do work. My initial assumption was incorrect.