1. Tekkit comes with NEI, or "Not Enough Item", so on the right side, you have a list of everything available in game, but unless every player are Op, and set in Cheat mode, then by default, NEI is set to recipe mode, which allows you to see recipes for everything simply by clicking on it, it's very useful since tekkit adds a lot of new items/weapons/machines to the game.
2. At first glance, it may look easy, having powered machinery to make everything quicker, electric furnaces that allows you to smelt a full stack on iron ore in less than 5 seconds, but when you look deeper, you realize that those things are very useful, as the more you start to expand, the more resources you need, just take a look at the high voltage solar array, which is the most efficient way to produce EU, but requires several thousand ingots of different type to create, so setting up quarries and automating the smelting process is pretty much required if you have big aspirations.
Also, you have other mods, like Mystcraft, which allows you to visit, and even create alternate dimension, but requires a lot of time and effort to get working properly.
Basically, Tekkit may look easy, but there is so much you can do, like automating a full factory that mines and even build everything for you, but doing so, the legit way, takes a lot of time and effort, and exploration, since this mod pack offers a lot of new features that have been missing from the vanilla version of the game. I've been playing tekkit since it pretty much came out, and when I go back to vanilla, all I can say is, damn this is easy. Once you start using machines from thermal expansion, you're gonna hate the old cobblestone furnace!