Redstone pipes give redstone signal when some item crosses on it . This pipes are from a Buildcraft addon which haven't been updated anymore.
The function of the Redstone pipes can be replaced with gates,however:
-Gates are more expensive.
-Pipes and gates aren't the same.
The different pipes and system that you can make with those is something that difference Buildcraft to other mods than adds pipes.

True Redstone pipes are better than gates. But forget it. I tried that already.
And that is a couple months ago.
Now i implemented it myself inside of my mod. And if you do play on 1.6.4 then you can have it soon. Next release is soon, with it

Feature Ideas go here @CubeWrench202 : http://mod-buildcraft.com/forums/index.php?board=4.0

@Speiger Thanks man!
@RagaRBM Sorry,i'm new in github

The optimal way is and will be to use gates. We are aiming for less pipe types for now, not more.