Just curious if you can upgrade/swap better armor into your follower's inventory (in Fallout 1) to beef them up a bit like in Fallout 3. Appreciate the help.

in fallout 1 you can't. in fallout 2 you can trade stuff to them and say "use your best available weapon" and "use your best available armor" and they will switch. fallout 3 you can trade it to them and they auto-equip.

sorry tho, fallout 1 lacked that feature

Well, in fact you CAN, but only with unofficial patch. You can get it here: http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/dload.php?action=file&file_id=1075 .
It allows you to change followers armor(and with it their appearance), improves party control and followers now level with you(1 lvl for every 4 levels).
Patch also fix a LOT of bugs and allows you to scroll through inventory with mouse wheel.