Base Cyclades is a 10/10 game for me. I have Titans but haven’t gotten to play since the acquisition. Fight pending 
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Looking through this thread while away from home, had a look over my games when i got back and i think i must’ve gotten rid of most of the games i’ve had expansions for. From what remains:
I’ve never played the In the Lab module of Pandemic, and i think i might never at this point - but i do use the extra roles from it.
Base Tokaido is fine without the crossroads expansion, another game that’s been designed with a beautiful simplicity to begin with where the expansion adds complexity for complexity’s sake
Abyss - the Leviathan expansion is excellent and fixes the one weak point on the base game; the kraken expansion adds a take that element that hasn’t gelled with the friends i play this with that well and it’s not seen much play (but i’m really quite curious about playing it more)
Gotten rid of Machi Koro, but the Millionaire’s Row expansion could be missed out without missing out.
Got the 1912 expansion for Ticket to Ride Europe which is worth using for the added routes - but i’ve never had any inclination to use the warehouse element of it
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Is it bad that I just discovered TtR: Europe has an expansion??
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Same.
The 15th Anniversary edition comes with the extra routes but completely omits the warehouses (similar, I’ve heard to the TtR 10th, which I only own the anniversary edition and never bought the base game or its expansion)
Nope. 1912 for TtR:USA was considered essential because it drove player interaction. 1910 for Europe was completely superfluous as they’d already learned how to make better maps and routes when they designed the core.
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No, it was necessary to get cards sized for human hands!
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I’d forgotten that the warehouses were a thing. The expansion was mostly a source of additional Long Routes if I recall.
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I felt this.
Titans just turn Cyclades into a generic TOAM. Jeez. If you want that, just play Kemet
Hades is rules bloat upon rules bloat. It did made Cyclades into “Cyclades, but ramp up to 11”.
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My rule for a long while now is to only keep expansions that I will add even with newbies in. So that means, I will be getting rid of Keyflower’s Merchants and Farmers expansions
I am not getting rid of FCM’s Ketchup expansion. That one is a real aspiration. 
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I support this thread necromancy.
Expansions to which I keep forgetting the rules and that make me not play the game… aren’t great.
- I admit that despite having the Complete Edition of Everdell I prefer playing with all the little things you can add in permanently but not any of the big expansions with extra boards (I mostly solo this)
- We recently scrapped the pseudo campaign expansion for Space Base because it kept us from enjoying the game. We took the whole thing, opened all the boxes and added all the cards and read all the rules and we can now enjoy Space Base again.
- As much as I like having all the stuff for Petrichor… here is a little too much in the CE box. you can never play with all of it.
Still, I have expansions I love and games I prefer with expansions. I probably previously mentioned those here. These are just some “recent” experiences… which are not keeping me from buying expansions. yet.
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Best bang for my buck expansions tend to follow the rule.
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Cthulhu Wars faction expansions and the High Priest (containing a few line of rules) have been good value for me.
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Seasons’ Enchanted Kingdom and Path of Destiny. They add more cards, and since the game is about drafting 9 cards as your starters, it doesn’t seem to be greatly affected by the deck bloat that other card tableaus have. The expansion have modules, but they are very easy to add once I actually read the rules and try them.
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Chicago Express’ mini expansions were cheap and saw good amount of plays. Erie Company only shows up on 5 to 6 players, as a rule of thumb for me.
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Agricola: All Creatures added more buildings which forms a pool where the setup will choose 12 I think. Easy.
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Hive - more pieces. More tools for players. The pillbug was a fave addition.
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El Dorado the Heroes and Hexes always gets played. Danger & Muisca to be determined. Rule book reading shows that it is very easy to include, which is typical Knizia.
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Race for the Galaxy - I now have 3 copies (because I am a nutter). Sounds weird, but it allowed me to play different arcs very easily. NO RAGRETS. Need more plays of Xeno Invasions
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Spirit Island - no need to say anything here
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Summoner Wars 1 and 2 - all of them are new factions. Easy to include and we have been cycling through them…
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Glory to Rome - just cards. I don’t even notice which cards are from the expansions.
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Kingdom Builder - getting the big box was cool. A lot of digging through the rule book, but it was worth it in the end that I don’t really care which one is expansion or not.
Mixed
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Inis - not impressed with the Seasons module. I haven’t played the 5 player enough. We never found the need for the “We Need a King” module as we always do breakthroughs. The new map tiles are very nice though.
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Cosmic Encounter is a mixed bag. I like the blind alliances from one of the expansions. Other than that, more aliens is nice, innit?
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El Grande - already mentioned in this thread above. Only Portugal and King and Intrigue are worth it. Inclusion of these depends on the table.
These have been bad value or potentially bad value:
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Sidereal Confluence - only read the rules for Bifurcation, but I’m not sure if I will be using this expansion often.
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Innovation: - haven’t tried the expansions. I might need to check which one to put first and go through them.
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Mottainai - same as Innovation
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Feudum - so many stuff to an already bloaty game.
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War of the Ring - WOTR is pretty much a collection item for me, at this point.
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Stil havering on these.
I’ve played with the Herb Witches a couple of times and quite enjoyed them, but I leave them out for new players and I’m often playing with new players. Haven’t even tried the Alchemists.
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I’ve got the Quacks megabox all shrinkwrapped in a cupboard because it was on sale for the same price as a single expansion for some reason. It seemed a good idea at the time, but the rules pdf makes it seem like each expansion is 50%-75% more rules without really making the game that much more interesting. I don’t know. I think we’d have to get pretty bored of base Quacks to try them, but then if we got bored of base Quacks then it might be time to move on. We’ll see.
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Hah, yeah, I bought my second copy recently so I could switch between the second and third arcs easily. But I also bought the first expansion arc too. Oh no, what to do?
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Echoes is awesome. Figures expands on Echoes and is also awesome.
Cities and Artefacts I haven’t tried yet - they are supposedly less game-changing and were developed last.
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Witches can be added with new players with no worries, in my (admittedly limited) experience. It’s basically new spell books and a few once-a-game powers.
Alchemists, though… Yeah, that adds a lot more overhead, basically tacking on a new minigame. It’s great, we love it, but it’s definitely for more experienced players loking for new wrinkles rather than people looking for more of the same.
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To me the box is just the new spell books really. I didn’t hate the witches powers but they weren’t that interesting so I didn’t feel they added much. My first play there was one that let you redraw which was great but really straight forward to use and the other 2 were near immaterial and I’ve not shaken the the disappointment on subsequent plays with them. I just struggle to find the options interesting
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