Oh, and a minor remark on my own playstyle:
Does also any of you have this sidetracking issues while playing for longer time intensively?
A) leaving most of the loot untouched (some areas are full of items rotating indefinitely)
B) while browsing through merchant's stuff, eventually I keep looking purely at the prices, and if it is cheaper than 100K, I don't even read the merchandise name. With the exception of books : when I click "usable (green) + items" and despite it will still show a lots of potions or scrolls, it shows only books that can be learned - pretty handy. In Dodd's mod I read through the new items from the Arnika merchants, and even observed in details most of them, out of pure curiosity, but also just once :)

I might consider mods if it gives a somewhat reasonable chance of getting a 6 person party to level 50. Do these mods keep the original things in place (is it still possible to clear out the Sixth Bough of all Rattkin)?

it definitely is possible, I just must have missed some important hints on the way.
The rapax traitor, working for trynnies, was also not obvious, but there were hints. He first was talkative and friendly, later he got angry with me, so I had to bribe him (was not cheap, but money was not a problem, as most critters drop 2~3K gold per head, and I killed hundreds of them) and then gave him an dedicated item, which triggered the required dialogue.

Said that - yes, some items, monsters or even whole events were moved, to add suppression or make progress more difficult, but I can say, that nothing from vanilla was outright removed.

Level 50 -> that comes up on everyone's own personal dedication about how much time & energy is one willing to invest into the gameplay. I finished the game around party level 36-37.

Remastered MOD drives me crazy due the unbearable frequency of CTDs.

Is there a possible way to proactively go through monsters / spawn scripts using Cosmic Forge and find any missing / broken alignments?
Some CTDs are triggered during combat, some irrationally even while I am just moving my mouse or trying to select a target.
Some occur while I am just moving or even just by standing still doing literally nothing - which brings me to a suspicion, that maybe monster spawn (which is triggered periodically) might be also the culprit.
In Lower Monastery there are not so many monsters or spawn scripts (more than in vanilla, but manageable as long I would have a clue what I shall be looking at in particular)

You really should use the latest fan patch at https://www.moddb.com/games/wizardry-8/downloads/wizardry-8-fan-patch-v128-build-6709 to run Expanded; the mod contains a lot of new models that push the game engine to its limit, and the fan patch is a lot more accommodating for them than vanilla Wiz8. Even then, you still might encounter crashes or stutters, so save frequently.

Thank you.
I am currently running the game with Wiz8_v128_eng.exe, but cannot tell which build it is, so I will download the one, you suggested.

Well, I noticed that in Cosmic Forge there is a note under monster roster : "Do not exceed 1000, as this is hard coded", but Extended mod has like 1.3 K monsters.
I assumed that this was addressed by .bat file, that uses CFInjector.exe. While the PDF was suggesting to use nocd.exe, which I do not have (GoG version is basically not in need of it) I edited the .bat file to launch the CF injector with the v128 exe file.

But even if I try running my v128 exe or injector with the v128 exe, I still face way too many errors.

Let's hope the latest patch helps, thanx.

Yep, worked like a charm. Thanx again :)

Pretty sure that 1.28 does not need the DLL injection by CFInjector,
afair you set it in an ini or config file whether injection should be added.

Yep, not using CF injector anymore and all works just fine.

Oh, this mod keeps fearie player characters in mind by new items, like this staff:

https://imgur.com/U4BZBsh

edit: something is wrong with imgur and I am lazy to look for alternative pic repo... sorry

I might not have fearie in my party, but I appreciate the thought, as I often had a fearie (usually a mage) and basically the whole playthrough I had the starting equipment (if I don't count the doll armor from rapax castle and featherweight armor)

Playing Expanded MOD, after fixing the CTDs, I was anxious about triggering war with either T'Rang, Umpani or both... although, while being blocked by them, I could easily change my mind and start the war myself out of pure frustration. (Same goes for Trynnies)

But now I was able to complete the semi-advanced quests for both (chaos moliri for T'Rang, alliance letter for Umpani) and both are happy. This time I made sure to travel to He'Li right after I met both sides and paid her shutup money.

So finally I feel at ease and can focus on a simplistic recap of what impressions Expanded MOD is giving;
1) loads of new content visual-wise, and I was so impressed right after starting to play, that I just went and downloaded 2GB of high-res textures (extracted it is 4.4 GB)
2) after applying the latest community patch 1.28, the game is unbelievably stable! Not a single crash.
3) Expanded mod is well balanced, new, stronger items are evenly distributed among the path, and to not make it to easy, new monsters are added to all locations. New monsters are stronger than vanilla ones, but not strong in an extend that it would frustrate you. None of the monsters (so far) is made a super tank, that forces you to reload 3-4 times (compared to Dodd's MOD). Some are glass cannons. If you let them live long enough, their damage is deadly (even in early Monastery, there were huge axe wielding undead, who could hit you 4 times, and sometimes have 4x2 attacks per round - when you ignored them approaching you), but their AC / resistances were not tremendous, so even with then available spells (shill sound, make wound) and battle capabilities, you could take them down, before they reached your weaker party members. Same for later encounters: some monsters have very potent attack capabilities, but as soon you learn about them, just target them with priority, and your party will survive just fine.
4) non-visual content is also interesting, New locations are added as 'jewelry' to existing world/dungeons. As in Monastery, where new pathways/doors are spread from the very starting location till the exit, so there are entirely new world locations, one is already in Arnika Road (from Monastery) - desert, with impressive pyramid and not less impressive guardians, later a volcano, with a boss of level 40.
5) back to visuals - some of the new visuals are not exactly better than the original, but most are outright impressive. New characters, that look like from another game (probably are) and are very vivid and detailed. The only glitch was purely visual, when aiming at Mantis, their 'polygons' go haywire and either disappear during the duration of aiming (I was selecting them with Psionic Blast), and when they were outside (mines), their upper half got spread like 20-30 meters outwards (like if they exploded) but as soon I finished selecting them, all was fine. Inside (T'Rang Sewers), same spell caused their upper body to just disappear. Again, after selection was complete, they become whole. But new types of monsters and NPCs is as numerous, so beautiful : elephants, tigers, reptiles, flyers, hybrids or new types (maybe inspired from other games maybe made up from scratch) are all detailed, beautiful and on higher level compared to W8 vanilla standards.

For me is most impressive the already mentioned balance - when battles are not easy, nor hard (well, if you meet -10 levels weaker monster group, it is easy, but that is not usual, nor often) but you still have a lots of fun. Dodd's Mod threw super strong enemies, you had to struggle with, but if you won, you got 1M EXP. In Expanded, you are still facing mild enemies, that are giving 20~60 K EXP (similar to vanilla XP distribution curve), but you can meet more of them, more frequently, have fun with evenly challenging battles, and soon you realize, that you are level 20 and still are in beginning of the whole game (Umpani/T'Rang quests, not even going near rapax castle or sea caves)

Some hard-placed teleporters are added through the world, making traveling a bit easier, adding minigame by making you collect teleporter stones

New quests are handled with higher niveau: you not only get quest log entry, but also get an item (scroll or book) where the text tells you where is the quest giver to be found, and also what she/he desires, sometimes with hints where to find it.
This is exactly what I need, as I am usually laze to make my own notes.

Overall, I am still fully impressed with the Extended MOD and I can wholeheartedly advise.
As for the "I want to stay 21 levels in Monastery" guy : I still think that staying in starting location for 21 levels is vastly counterproductive, but at least you got there two extra merchants in Monastery now. One extra she-Trynnie and then there is a fishmen tribe, with a fish-merchant. Not sure if that is exactly what will make the long stay of 21 levels a lot better, but hey, better than nothing.

Oh, also noteworthy:
stats, skills and resistances are uncapped (by active usage, skills can go beyond 100, resistances can reach 200)
I was positively surprised when I first saw " xx's skill increased to 101" - pretty neat

Next are new unique weapons, mostly ranged weapons for otherwise weak classes, like mage, alchemyst, psionic, priest. Each has now unique ranged (long) weapon with unique ammo, but the real shock was in realizing : ammo has various levels (just as we know about stones -> medusa / golden, or arrows -> peacemakers...) so just like that the high-tier ammo for these caster classes can reach 90 (1-90) and maybe I haven't found all of them.
Which tops even deadly sniper rifle (dealing 1-70 dmg & 7% kill chance)

Similar ranged unique weapons are also for gadgeteer and bard, although the first one is still dedicated to use omnigun.

But it are not ranged weapons only - short blades (like daggers) or staves. are now offering a lot wider variety, some of which are deadly like the most unique weapons from vanilla, and even caster type classes can use them.

Compared to Dodd's, it is a lot harder to handle regen. Most items / amulets with positive effects have some demerit (negative regen or negative stats, like -4 AC and such) so it is not easy to make self-sustaining party (and you will be reliable on sleep / potions)

armor, compared to weapons, is not so much buffed, hence the overall gameplay gives a pretty balanced feel. Enemies are tougher, but not deadly, equipment is better but does not feel god-like. You still have to rely on strategy, but your party won't be wiped out nearly every third encounter (like in Dodd) so traveling around is a bit more painful from stamina perspective, but not so punishing from monster encounter perspective.

new portals can ease traveling a bit, but I still rely on set portal.

I hope my 'well balanced' feel won't be trashed after exploring the sea and bayjin.

By level 41:

Most characters should have maxed 5 stats. You can get this by giving +3 into your first 2 stats at level up, then +2 to your next 3 stats at level up. This unlocks 5 expert skills.

Everybody should have filled out their spellbooks (all but the Bishop are guaranteed to, but the Bishop, with care, can get all 101 spells in the game).

All of your skills should be maxed, with heavy training in some cases (Snakespeed will never max in a normal game; You have to stand there for 10K rounds or more and defend).

You can farm the best items in vanilla: *Light Swords* and *Light Shields* from the Buccaneer Ghosts, Staves of Doom from the Rapax Corpses.

I'm not sure how much the mods disrupt that "Power Play".