I suppose I'm fairly unique in that I actually like node_modules.

I enjoy the simplicity of having a project level folder that has all the dependencies.

I like being able to easily expand it in my project tree and set a breakpoint in a dependency source file to debug strange issues.

For deployments, I like being able to see exactly what's being executed.

I would enjoy some more clear (to me) version locking though. I seem to constantly run into issues between environments with slight version changes, even though I commit my lockfile.