Did you know you can have >1000 different looking blocks in 1.7.x or lower only with Optifine installed? Also if you did know: Now there is a plugin (by me xD) which allows you to use the blocks in survival as well and craft them with fair recipes. You can see the recipes ingame via /recipes.
The Conquest pack is the default Resourcepack for the plugin, but it can be changed, so you can use other extended Resourcepacks as well.

I used this plugin on my own server Hardcore City RPG before.
MoreBlocks API - Bukkit

277899276s ago, by Antonio

This was all used on a server I played on. I think we used our own recipes though. It made for some really cool and interesting towns and builds.

277868285s ago, by AdamEvans

+Dayne Close yes the client only needs Optifine and the resourcepack

So it's like a server side Quadrum?

277895606s ago, by DayneClose