Here's my real issue though: I did all of the side quests in Bitter Springs, then decided that it was time to take Boone there for his side quest "I forgot to remember to forget" (at least I think that's the name of the quest. That's when things finally failed completely. After staying the night, being awoken by Boone and told that there is a Legion raiding party on the way, the game freezes completely every single time I try to enter the town. It seems like the commotion and the NPC's on the screen (which aren't really that many considering some other next-gen titles I've played without problems) are first slowing the game to a crawl and then stopping it completely.
I've tried numerous times to pass the quest, tried entering the town from various different different directions, all with the same end result: Hard reset of my PS3. Once, I was actually able to kill three of the Legion raiders, but that's as far as it ever went.
I wanted to post this to see if anyone else has had this problem, maybe has a fix, and also just in some (probably vain) hope that Bethesda will take notice of yet another issue in what should have been one of the greatest games of all time and decide to fix it. Having been a huge fan of Bethesda games since the very first Elder Scrolls game (Arena), Fallout: New Vegas just breaks my heart and I simply can't believe that they released it in this condition, almost as if no one ever even bothered to test or play through the game prior to doing so.
Thanks for reading.