Probably my next time through the game, I'm going to take that wild west trait to see what it really does. It looks like it might be funny.

I just stole a plasma weapon worth 6995 caps from the laser weapon store in Freeside. The guards didn't react, and I was allowed to leave and get all my stuff back from the bouncer ... is that going to fuck up something I don't know about or should I keep the weapon? It's making short work of pesky robots.

Generally it just adds flavour to remind you not to take Fallout too seriously. Like the fridge with a body in it bearing a striking resemblance to Indiana Jones complete with Bullwhip.

There are only two parts of the game that are directly affected by it off the top of my head. If you don't have the perk you appraoch a barn and it's a group of fiends that attack you, one of which has the unique Gauss Rifle. If you do have the perk you find our old friends from Mothership Zeta complete with UFO and an Alien Blaster to loot from the Captain.

Another part of the game will have a Church with some mini-nukes. If you have the Wild Wasteland perk however the mini-nukes are replaced with Holy Hand Grenades.
Nah you can loot everything from the Silver Rush and you are encouraged to if you can get away with it as it's the only place you can get the Plasma Caster.

Well, I have the zany trait and I seem to be encountering rather more burnt-out deloreans than average. Like, every other car looks like one. I assumed it was because of the trait.

As much as I loved Fallout 3, I agree with you on that point: New Vegas is much more of a Fallout game than Fallout 3 was. There is much, much more to do, and the environments and designs better capture the feel of FO1 and FO2. I feel that New Vegas is substantially more open-ended and sandbox-ish, which is what FO2 seemed to be like.

One of the flaws of Fallout 3 is that it wasn't very populated. My best friend, a huge Elder Scrolls fan, had a difficult time enjoying Fallout 3, but fell into New Vegas almost immediately because of the population density.

I'm guns and melee specced with repair of 90 and speech 75. Using a Super Sledge, I went back to the quarry mines where the Deathclaws populate. They had destroyed me horribly before, couldn't take down 1 even. Using a Combat Armour MK2 with 25DT. But then now when I activate Vats with the Super Sledge, there's this mauler power attack and when I use it, the Deathclaw flies right into the air like a baseball and then smashes down to the ground. Takes a while for it to get up, by then I landed another 2 power hits on it. And when it got up another hit and it died. Is that mauler option unlocked by the weapon or skill points?

Also I've originally 6 End, now I've added in a perk and it's 7 End. So in total I can get up to 7 implants? I already added 1 Intel, then probably 2-3 luck(hello Casino), the DT implant and the Regen implant. The DT implant only once?

Next playthrough I'm gonna spec Unarmed/Melee like what I went through for the entire campaign in Fallout 2 punching everything to death except the last boss. But I don't see many Fist Weapons.

That's a lot of caps spent on implants. Not that there's much else to spend money on in the game though. Yea, the special implants - regen and DT - can only be done once.

I'm at the Cannibal sidequest in the Strip. Best sidequest ever so far. Sidequests like this make an RPG look really good.

The regen implant turned out to be largely a waste in hardcore, as it doesn't seem to heal the limbs. And the description the doctor gives isn't particularly enlightening about that point. Not sure why you'd want that perk if it didn't help with the crippled limbs or help prevent them from going crippled in the first place. For 12k, it's quite expensive for something of marginal value.

EDIT: After I upgraded my pad, I spend most of my caps on bigger weapons doctor bags.

There is, but it strikes me that an upgrade that expensive ought to be at least marginally useful.

Also, those other perks you earn by doing things are pretty awesome. Nice to have achievements have some impact on the game. Plus because it's not Blizzard, nobody is going to ban you for cheating in the single player game.
EDIT: And that toughness one seems to be pretty subtle as well.

You're right. I finished the game in hardcore mode as well and the regen implant was quite useless. Heck, I couldn't even notice it actually regenerating health for me, let alone repairing CND. Getting it did not make any difference at all to how I was playing the game before the implants. Still used to depend on food/stimpacks/Doctor's bags for health.

It does regen HP, just slowly enough as to be worthless. As far as I can tell, it's pretty much just the SPECIAL implants that are worth getting, as those actually do something.

Yeah I love that too. :) Makes me feel like punching all those scorpions is working toward something.

Took me a bit to figure out that there was something going on there beyond just the achievement. First time I recall seeing that mechanic was in Borderlands, and this version isn't overpowered, you get a bit of a boost, but not too much.