So I've finally found a mod which addresses a serious immersion issue for me, and does it in an acceptable way.
The issue? Smacking an ore deposit a few times makes it 'run out' of ore. You can clear an entire mine in about 5 minutes and you're done. Sure it might respawn in 30 ingame days when the cell resets, but who wants to wait 30 days? It is unrealistic on multiple levels, and far to 'gamey' for me. These wouldn't be very effective mines if all they gave the owner was ~15 ore per month, and why so many miners when you can clear all the deposits in a few minutes?
The solution?
RP Chopping and MiningThis mod makes animation-based gathering take time. You gain a variable amount of ore per hour that you spend mining. Chopping wood takes time as well, giving about 10 firewood per hour. You start mining and then you 'wait' a number of hours.
This is an acceptable compromise for me, because I also use:
Imp's More Complex NeedsThis mod makes it so you must eat, drink and sleep else you incur penalties and eventually die of thirst/hunger. With the complex setting on, you must also worry about things like food poisoning from raw meat, alcohol poisoning, balanced intake of protein and nutrients, mental/physical fatigue, etc.
So with this mod, I can spend a few hours mining and must take a break to eat some food. You can't mine 24 hours straight without rest. (Well you could I suppose, if you want to be starving and exhausted and then die to a passing wolf who happened to glance at you.)
It is an acceptable arrangement for me, and allows me to get the ore I need without tracking down every single mine in Skyrim and mining them dry while still having a cost associated with acquiring the ore. It also drops the amount that the mine owner will pay you for the ore so they're not buying the ore for more than shops will sell it at, which was a bit silly. This means mining can be a secondary income stream for you as well, with no limit on the amount of ore. If you want to spend a few days mining to build up some cash, you can do that. If you need 30 more iron ore to build an expansion onto your house and you (like me) have already emptied every iron mine in the vicinity, this mod will help. That is, in fact, the reason I looked up the mod in the first place. I couldn't find any more iron within a day's walk of my house and I needed more nails.
Anyway, just figured I would let people know in case anyone else is playing a realism/survival game like I am.
I use several other mods too, and Skyrim really is a different game.