So, with that being said this is what my mod does:

1.) Those goofy blood explosions are just about gone. There is still an extremely small chance of causing a bad dude to explode... but it is an EXTREMELY small chance. In all my testing I havent seen it after I made my change.

2.) While it is near impossible to cause someone to explode now, taking off an arm is MUCH easier. Just about every close range blast with a shotgun will take a chunk off of a badguy. Things are still proportionate tho. Long range shotgun hits are unlikely to dismember enemies. Also, blowing a guy in half is still a pretty rare occurance.

3.) Grenades are just about garanteed to take pieces off of the bad guys. Very similar to the way the shotgun now works but the probability of dismemberment is even higher.

4.) The submachine gun fires a little faster. I did this because the original game uses tracer effects to make you think the gun is fireing faster than it is. THe assualt rifle gives off less tracers than the submachine gun does, so you are lead to believe that the submachine gun fires faster.
Now it does.

5.) When the player has down to 50 life they will start breathing heavily. At about 25 the heartbeat sound will come in. Both of these were enhanced above what they originally were. At the hardest difficulty [the one i play on], it is very rare to get to below 30 life. Usually a shot beyond 50 means you are dead. It just makes these effects a little more aparent in game.