My first encounter with EB also ended with great dispaointment but fir another reason, my old aged computer disliked it for some reason and did not even allow me to install it properly. After geting over the desilusion I downloaded RTR6 (1.9) which I concidered downgrade in comparation to EB and started to like it after a while. Later I switched to FRRE mods and RTR VII which gave me best clasical antiquity gaming experience so far. I never really played RS or RSII every time I downloaded and installed the later I somhow felt it is not for me and unistalled it after while, I can not really say why but I going to give it another chance after the last update with customized settlemetns is going to be released as it was always my dream to have them in RTW alongside with naval battles.
My first experiece with IB mods was similar to EB, I found out about the mod (my first was IBFD 7.03) and was amazed by the features and units, than I have installed it and found out my game CTDs at loading screen everytime I started new campaingn with most of the faction, reinstaling and redowloading did not help and I was suffering with same problem also on the SAI. After that painful experiences I switched to FoR and enjoyed the vanilla nostalgy. Later in 2011/2012 I got a new laptop I have never had anymore problems with any RTW mod except some post battle lack of memory CTDs after several large campaign battles with RSII enviroments.