So.. Yeah. I was thinking ofa melee build, typically unarmed due to PA bonuses but..

Well, even in the guide it only references 4 weapons, excluding unique variants of existing ones.. So, is it even worth it? Or is the gameplay good enough alone?

Two of them aren't even good, so really only 2 weapons. And even then those 2 are worse versions of their melee counter part There isn't any actual reason other than aesthetic/rp reasons.

That being said, you can still eventually faceroll the game with them. Gotta go full vats and/or sneak. But you can do that w/ any other weapon in the proper build and quicker.

I'm hoping for someone to make a mod that adds something special to unarmed, possibly lower vats cost or a base critical chance.

I'm playing an unarmed on Normal using bladed knuckles.
So far I'm having a blast.

Light armor/clothing only.

Stealth obviously is huge and so is the perk that let's you close distance quickly...not sure of the name.

VATS helps a lot.

Yeah I was disappointed in the limited weapon selection too, but with my current character who is based off Grognak I use it as my in building weapon for fast attacks. I don't use stealth that much and my character still does good in survival diffilculty, although I do rely on chems alot like jet/buffout/psycho to kill large gun equipped groups. I would recommend having it as a secondary weapon until DLC or mods improve the variety of those type of weapons.

I didn't see any good reson to choose unarmed over melee: you just find so many more melee weapons than unarmed. Whatever it is you want from an unarmed weapon, a melee weapon will always be a better alternative.

IMO:

-There should be places where you aren't allowed to carry weapons (like in New Vegas) where you would either need to be able to fight unarmed, convince the guards to let you stay armed (charisma) or have a perk or maybe "hidden pocket" armor mods that let you hide small weapons.

-There should be legal brawling (like in Skyrim) as an alternative to talking people into things.

-A one-shot "kill" when hidden and unarmed will "knockout" the enemy, not kill them, providing a middle-ground between killing them and pacifying them. (A second blow to a knocked-out enemy will kill them.)

-Perhaps mobility benefits while unarmed: eliminate the weapon-drawn penalty to movespeed for example.

Further, it strikes me as something of an odd decision not to incorporate "unarmed weapons" into armor. Yes, they added a the "brawling" feature to arm peices, and the power armor has a variety of unarmed modifications as well, but why the half-measure? IMO, there should have been no "unarmed weapons" at all, but rather ENTIRELY incorperate them into the armor crafting system. So spiked and bladed knuckles, power fists, and deathclaws would be available as armor mods, not weapons. This would mean a few things:

-More random enemies would spawn with these "weapons" because they could be built into their armor.

-No issues with unarmed and power armor, because the same modifications would be avilable on the power armor itself.

-"Dual-Wielding" becomes possible (as you have two arm-peices) and when truly unarmed you alternate left and right hand strikes.

-Make it possible to integrate unarmed combat with the use of other weapons in a variety of ways. For example, you could replace your "weapon bash" with an unarmed strike if your left arm includes a weaponized armor mod.