So, I've been thinking about what Minecraft/IndustrialCraft might be lacking, and I came to realize that one issue with the mining laser is that the items can be fairly far away(Long Range Mode), or when mining in the Nether, it can be somewhat difficult to retrieve stuff from certain locations.
Hence, I came up with the idea for a Tractor Beam. It's exactly what it sounds like: it picks up items from a distance and drags them towards you along a straight line, and is capable of mining blocks and dragging them to you, although this requires you to research the upgrade with a computer, for the cost of 50 xp levels. I dunno, balance details may be left to the dev team.
The point is, this item definitely requires blueprint research and assembly by a dedicated block, similar to Buildcraft's Assembler. This block can construct all items like this that require fine detail work. Like I said, details for you guys, just throwing the idea out.
Obviously, this awesome piece of tech requires advanced Items such as the lapotron crystal, etc. etc.
What do you guys think of the concept?