so... I rabbit-holed on Skyrim mods last night after I made that post.

Wow. They've come a long way in the years since I last played the game.
One of them really stood out to me. I think it's called Ordinator Perk Overhaul.

It basically makes every perk tree now a viable class unto itself, with drastically different play styles involved in just working through any single tree, let alone mixing and matching skills from across the trees.

Anyone played Skyrim in the past couple of years? Any mod suggestions?