One thing that's annoyed me in the recent Fallouts, is that of all the Vault opened, and their inhabitants either killed off or just another wastelander, no random wastelander is wearing a Pip-boy. It would be nice for once, to see people other than the PC out in the wasteland with a Pip-boy strapped to their wrist. And I'm not talking about Vaulters, I'm talking about just other's who might not have necessarily come from a Vault. Raiders, who took over a Vault (like the Fiends with Vault 3,) or just some Scavenger who looked over a Vault and came across a Pip-boy to use.
Or maybe even just bring back the hand-held Pip-boy 2000, rather than the wrist mounted ones.
Yeah. 122 vaults with 1000 inhabitants each, there should be at least 122,000 pipboys of all models. Maybe more, maybe less. Did Vault-Tec supply every vault with pipboys for everyone? And extra for children concieved inside the vault? Were pregnancies controlled for population control, btw? Anyways, say 122,000 pipboys at least, and most Vaults are open as you said, either the inhabitants went out or they were killed off, either by outside force or the experiment. There should be a few pipboys laying around, some broken sure, but scavengers would of course pick up an unusual object like that and sell it to some tech savvy guy. If it's a working device, wouldn't you put it on if you found it? So yeah, some people who don't have a vault dweller background should have pipboys. Raiders, scavengers, traders, wastelanders who "inherited" one, tribals (would be the funniest thing, the only piece of tech they'd be wearing, maybe it'd be broken too but it's a holy bracelet to them). And btw, in Fallout 1 or was it 2, people you met seemed to be familiar with the pipboy you were carrying. Taking a quest, the quest giver could say something like "here, let me mark the location on your pipboy thingie there". So people must've seen them before.