Steam included hi-res texture pack plugin files?

[Bashis]

alright so im to the point in skyrim modding now that i have the need to merge/eliminate uneeded plugins, and the first thing that comes to mind is the 3 high res tex pack .esp files that steam puts in there if you grab the high res textures from them, because they litterally are nothing but blank file headers, they dont do anything at all, is there any real need to keep them to get the high rez textures or can i just unpack the .bsa files and use the loose files?

[Ark of Truth]

The whole point of those ESPs is to make it easy to turn the texture packs on and off at will just in case your computer is unable to handle the new textures. Don't merge them either.

[DoctaSax]

If it's still the same system as oblivion & fallout you can always rename the bsa's to start with the name of a plugin you actually do want to keep, the same way as is suggested in SCR's resource install for Vegas chokers. That way you don't need to unpack them.

[ballsy]

I have the .esps disabled. They don't do jack after you extract the BSAs.