My suggestion is this.
Similar to how you can construct mechanical devices in Minecraft with Redstone, it would be nice to be able to create actual mechanical devices of our own. For example, waterwheels could be a craftable object but the mechanism for driving it etc is up to the player. Certain machines could be gear driven but how the mechanical power is gotten to the device is up to the player. The player could craft gears and belts/pulleys etc and create a gear system that drives other machines. Similar to a redstone factory where you had many redstone circuits to drive a device or series of devices.
So, Example: You have a waterwheel or windmill that connects to gears that connect to a pulley/belt drive that travels over a longer distance to connect to another machine like a sawmill or something for turning logs into other types of wood like planks and such in larger quantities. An alternative to the belt drive could be a drive shaft similar to the craft item "auger" and normally found in vehicles for transmitting mechanical power from the engine to the rear axle.
