libloot VS wabbajack

That's mostly right, though groups handling is more complicated than that. You're also missing the final step that breaks ties between pairs of plugins by putting them in their existing relative load order positions unless that contradicts data applied earlier.

As far as I know, downloading and installing each mod is the main method for the modding-openmw lists.

There is a tool to try to automate game modlist installs called Wabbajack [1]. It was briefly discussed on the openmw forums [2]. I'm not sure if anyone has tried further to get the modding-openmw lists working with it. I have never used Wabbajack, so I don't know too much other than it exists. It still seems to have extra requirements according to the post, including a premium NexusMods account if you don't want to manually download everything.

Just as I typed all the above I saw a mention of portmod [3] in the modding-openmw guide about mod managers. Seems it's like Gentoo's portage, but for game mods. I see it has some meta packages for modding-openmw in their ebuild-like repository [4], but I don't think any of the big lists have been updated in awhile. Also, there again seems to be issues with it auto downloading from NexusMods mentioned in the issue tracker. Nevertheless, it looks to be an interesting project.

[1] https://github.com/wabbajack-tools/wabbajack

[2] https://forum.openmw.org/viewtopic.php?t=7581

[3] https://gitlab.com/portmod/portmod

[4] https://portmod.gitlab.io/openmw-mods/meta-momw/

There haven't been a need to mess around with mod load order since at least 2019.

https://github.com/wabbajack-tools/wabbajack/releases/tag/3.0.5.0 download for 3.0.5.0

Wabbajack is the name of an installer to simplify installing mods, in these days of a modded skyrim install having potentially hundreds of mods totalling more gigs than the entire primary game install.

All previous releases are readily available on the Wabbajack Github Releases page: https://github.com/wabbajack-tools/wabbajack/releases

To do that: download https://github.com/wabbajack-tools/wabbajack/releases/download/2.5.3.28/2.5.3.28.zip. Unzip to a folder called 2.5.3.28 inside your directory where wabbjack.exe is located. Run 2.5.3.28\wabbajack.exe

You can also check out Wabbajack which is used with this modding guide. This should hopefully set you on the right path. Pre-Skyrim modding typically uses 3rd party modding software that is more in-depth and configurable than MCM to the detriment of being accessible to those less inclined to spend time setting up mods.