I dont think the wild waste land trait did anything!! It barly makes the game any different.
Spoiler There are 17 "encounters" and most of them are pretty hard to catch/ make sense of. The only true difference in gameplay is obtaining the Holy Frag Grenades (Only in Wild Wasteland) Alien Blaster (Wild Wasteland) however you do NOT get the unique YCS/186 Guass Rifle. Other than that, the "encounters" ...well it depends... I merely chuckled at them (like the R.O.U.S.) but others might think differently.
Whether or not it affects the gameplay is how the players perceived the "encounters" and then they can decide if it was a good trait or not.
However IMO most people who say the trait is bad is because they don't get the YCS/186 and/or they don't get the references.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Wild_Wasteland