Some screen shots of my 1.6 world. Not pretty, but it is functional. Haven't really gotten very far with it either.
Automatic ore processing
These machines will increase ore output by around 3x. It takes 20 real minutes, but it can be worth it. Ore is ground and doubled (top right), washed (top left), reduced with a small chance of doubling (bottom middle), allowed to sit to crystallize and net 1-2 extra for every 5 (bottom left), then smelted into ingots (bottom right). One stack of ore will net you around 3 stacks of ingots at the end of all this.
Solar plant for above
Bulk item storage
Each block can hold 64 stacks. Even unstackable items like swords. And, yes, they're on the floor.
Chicken Farm (under glass)
Just a chicken sitting on a hopper. Gives me eggs every so often. About as vanilla as I get.
Wool Farm
Yes, those are cotton plants. When it's ready to be harvested, the machines on the side will pick the cotton, and will send it to the auto crafting machine behind the line. (9 cotton = 1 wool)
Tree Farm
Just a cart that runs around on a mine track, planting and harvesting trees. Cart runs off charcoal that it makes (automatically) by smelting logs every so often.