It's been a long time since I played Fallout 1, but here's some helpful hints from a gamefaqs guide.

The guide recommended the following:

STR: 4
END: 5
PER: 7
INT: 7
CHR: 5
AGI: 6
LCK: 6

- The Gifted perk gives you 7 additional stat points to play with (the negative -%10 to skills and -4 skill points per level seems to be a small price according to guide and I agree)

- This should allow you to bring PER and AGI to 8 for Sniper. So that's 3 points reallocated from the 7 point increase.

- This leaves you 4 points to reallocate and maybe place in AGI, PER or LCK. Unfortunately, the guide doesn't specify what he did with those extra points other than PER and AGI for the Level 18 perk Sniper mentioned above.

- It also mentions a way to get 1 extra point in Luck (possibly 2 if done right from the same NPC in Adytown, Fortune teller I think)

- As for STR, the Power Armor should bring you to STR 10 according to the guide. Though you may want to make sure what the minimum requirements are to equip it. Maybe it has a minimum STR requirement. I'm guessing the recommended STR 4 should be a safe.

- According to a fan site there should be a random encounter somewhere in mountain areas where asking a NPC to sing a song (Celtic song?) will increase your CHA by 1 point. Don't recall this myself and didn't know about this at the time to even make the attempt.

- The guide doesn't mention the Small Frame perk.

Look for the gamefaq guide for more details.

A lot of it seems to fit what I sort of recall from my time playing, though it's been so long I can't be 100% sure. Also remember, you can lower the difficulty to Easy to increase non-combat skills for skill checks and then return it to your preferred difficulty. Unless you already play on Easy anyway. :)

Hopefully someone with more knowledge can help you further.
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There's some good guides on gamefaqs for Fallout 2 also and even some that has detailed lists of Companions and how to have them join. Another guide with detailed lists of Weapons, Armors and Ammo types.

Overall a good place for Fallout 1 & 2 guides.
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I've come up with this list of how to set the SPECIAL for specific builds and whether or not they are normal intelligence, gifted, or stupid.

The only builds that don't take Small Frame are the Gifted Burst Fire and Gifted Hand to Hand ones. The stats for Stupid in Fallout 1 assume that you don't get the implants.

Fallout 1

Pistol

Normal: S-4 P-7 E-5 C-4 I-7 A-8 L-5

Gifted: S-4 P-7 E-5 C-4 I-9 A-9 L-9

Stupid: S-4 P-8 E-9 C-1 I-3 A-9 L-6

Sniper

Normal: S-5 P-7 E-4 C-4 I-7 A-8 L-5

Gifted: S-5 P-7 E-5 C-4 I-9 A-8 L-9

Stupid: S-5 P-8 E-8 C-1 I-3 A-9 L-6

Burst Fire

Normal: S-6 P-7 E-4 C-3 I-7 A-8 L-5

Gifted: S-6 P-7 E-4 C-3 I-9 A-9 L-9

Stupid: S-7 P-8 E-6 C-1 I-3 A-9 L-6

Hand To Hand

Normal: S-6 P-5 E-6 C-3 I-7 A-8 L-5

Gifted: S-6 P-5 E-7 C-6 I-9 A-9 L-5

Stupid: S-7 P-6 E-8 C-1 I-3 A-9 L-6

Fallout 2

Pistol

Normal: S-4 P-7 E-6 C-4 I-7 A-8 L-4

Gifted: S-4 P-7 E-6 C-4 I-9 A-9 L-8

Stupid: S-4 P-7 E-10 C-4 I-3 A-8 L-4

Sniper

Normal: S-5 P-7 E-5 C-4 I-7 A-8 L-4

Gifted: S-5 P-7 E-6 C-4 I-9 A-8 L-8

Stupid: S-5 P-7 E-10 C-3 I-3 A-8 L-4

Burst Fire

Normal: S-5 P-7 E-5 C-4 I-7 A-8 L-4

Gifted: S-5 P-7 E-5 C-4 I-9 A-9 L-8

Stupid: S-5 P-7 E-10 C-3 I-3 A-8 L-4

Hand To Hand

Normal: S-5 P-5 E-7 C-4 I-7 A-8 L-4

Gifted: S-5 P-5 E-7 C-8 I-9 A-9 L-4

Stupid: S-5 P-5 E-10 C-5 I-3 A-8 L-4

All you need to know about Fallout 1 and 2 can be found in Per Jorner's guides.
The Nearly Ultimate Fallout Guide
The Nearly Ultimate Fallout 2 Guide

Besides information about character creation and builds, it also contains information about quests, so don't read too far if you don't want to know about those.

Keep in mind that for the purposes of perk requirements you can use drugs to reach them. (strength, perception, endurance, agility...). Which means Luck is the real bottleneck.

Is having Luck maxed by endgame necessary for characters who don't take Gifted? Do you even need points in Charisma in the first game? Does Perception have any effect on long range combat?

Charisma in FO1 is useless, keep it at 1. It's only good in FO2, technically 4 is enough for 99% of quests. Luck, you want to be able to take better criticals which requires LK6 so plan accordingly. LK6 is also required for the Bonus Ranged Damage perk, which is must have for a burst build character. Higher than 6 is only useful if you're going the sniper route. Perception gives huge bonuses to the chance to hit, especially on weapons which have the bonus long range perk. IIRC, if your enemy is outside of the effective range, you get +(PE-2)*16 percent to the chance to hit. So take PE6 or 8. In tough combat situations you can increase it by 2 or 4 via Mentats (taking it once/twice respectively)

Almost forgot, FO1 doesn't have a limit on have many drugs you can take at one time. FO2 limits you to 2 dosages of some type of a drug (so you can take 2xMentats and 2xBuffout, but not 4xMentats).

What if you're like me, not the type of player who uses drugs to qualify for perks, unless you're playing a stupid character?

Well, setup your stats such that you qualify for perks even without the drugs :)

That's what I have written down in my notes.

By the way, I have found that accuracy with long range weapons is better with higher Perception. Is there a point to having Perception maxed by endgame with that in mind? Also, I read on the Fallout wikia that hitting the eyes has the highest chance of critical hits and that taking Sniper doesn't break the game if you focus on targeted shots. Burst Fire, which only hits the torso, is another matter. With this in mind, how much Luck should Snipers and Burst Fire characters have by endgame or is having an endgame value of 6 for Better Criticals good enough?

Snipers want to have LK between 6-10 (with the buffs and what not, in unpatched FO1 you can increase LK by 2, in the patched FO1 by 1, in FO2 by 2). 6 for the better criticals which is a must have for a sniper character. Burst characters technically don't need better criticals, but they still want to have high luck for the sniper perk. I can't give you a specific number since it all depends on the build you're playing. You want to increase LK, you gotta decrease some other stat. For the gifted sniper build that you have up there I'd go with something like this>

S-5 P-7 E-4 C-4 I-9 A-10 L-8 (FO2)

Mind you, if you're not using drugs, you almost always want to go for AG10. Certainly on a guns build. Unarmed/Melee/Throwing are different I suppose.

Certain stats are only possible to be maxed with Gifted. Without Gifted or without low intelligence, I don't think any stat, with the exception of Agility (for more action points), is worth maxing by endgame as trying to do so would only gimp you. The only stat that should always be maxed no matter what is Agility. If you have low intelligence, however, you'll have extra stat points to spend since you'll also be dumping Charisma, so you can max by endgame the other important stats including Strength, Luck, Agility, and maybe Endurance.