...But should not be allowed to.

Seriously; Fallout PCs have always been pinch hitters ~not specialists. Specialists are the guys that run a shop all day, and actually know what they are doing when they repair something. The whole theme of jury-rigging, and using make-shift tools to get the job done, is based around the concept of a talented amateur ~not a professional.
The PC is jack-of-trades; where [ideally] even the highest attainable skill level should be below that of an expert. No PC should have the background, tools, and education to repair power armor ~for instance. That should be something they have to find an expert for.

Fallout 2 allowed the inquisitive player to discover a specialist that could enhance their equipment ~in ways they the PC could not hope to; or they could pay a different expert. Had they wished or intended it, they could certainly have offered the player the option to mod things themselves. As it is, instead of clicking a menu button to modify a weapon, they had them click a menu saying that someone else did it.

It's all about that old dude in the basemant of the gun shop in New Reno. Just make sure to sneak in the back way (if i dont have a lockpick dude, i blow his door open with some TNT, and the guy never gets it fixed)

It sounds like some of you don't understand the topic. This is not about NPCs modding gear. It's about the ways in which mods (those things we download from Nexus) might affect Bethesda's development of Fallout 4.

I think the original point was that weapon mods were in Fallout 2, but implemented very differently.

My impression was that it questioned whether or not Bethesda implements the concepts of user mods in their games; and the technical answer is 'Yes', but that doesn't mean that they ever saw a mod that implemented it. Just because someone thinks of it ~and manages to implement it, doesn't mean that they were the first, nor even that Bethesda developers hadn't played around with the idea and decided not to include it; until they change their mind.

The GECK/CS EULA allows them to own anything made with their tools, but it's not to grab (and profit from) user ideas, it's [partly] to prevent users from claiming theft of concept ~merely because they had it in their mod.
The EULA takes the rug out from under them for having agreed to it. It has to be that way these days; they don't care about "stealing" new ideas... there aren't any, we've all thought up this stuff.

I seen that Howard actually plays there games with mods and will reach out to modders I guess, I've always heard rumors and I assumed they would look at mods as they really are amazing but I am happy that they do at least in some way.

Exactly. I've always regretted that Obsidian based weapon mods on some mod instead of good solution already found in F2.

Sorry, no. There is not one word about weapon mods in the opening post.

This is the question that is being asked in this thread: "Does anyone know if they look at mods from past fallout games like Fallout 3 for NV and possibly both for the future?"

No no I mean their original point, not yours ops. Because someone said Obsidian got the idea for weapon mods from a Fallout 3 mod and abian;oiu [g'qol3j

That was strictly an example to show that at least Obsidian was looking at some player made mods when they came up with their ideas for New Vegas.

Yeah. I know. Do any of you actually READ the topic before responding?