I don't know, sometimes I get the feeling that some quests could, or even should, have been more complex as they are. Or stuff that deserved a quest dint't get one. Like the situation where one of the Followers is complaining that people have to pay for water to the Kings. There could have been a quest to fix it.
Maybe there was suposed to be one but it got canned.
And since I mentioned the Followers, how about the quest for the medical supplies?

'Booted'. That's the one I find most galling. Trussed up to quest status, and yet it amounts to less than one of those Super-Mutant-Captive-Rescues from FO3. The bloody powder gangers are mute! You don't even get so much as a thank you, they just stumble off into the desert to vacantly stand around for the rest of the game. Pathetic.

It was after doing that quest that I realised I'd have to massively lower my expectations for when a new quest title would flash up on screen. Any old nonsense gets given quest status in NV.

Generally speaking though, I think quest design is just another casualty of the 18-month development cycle.

What puzzled me is that something like "Booted" gets quest status when "Dealing With Contreras" – something multi-part and involved, with a significant reward at the end – doesn't. I wonder what the rationale was behind that kind of thing?

Could be that they thought of 'Booted' as some kind of XP booster for lower-levels. However, that really doesn't that good of an excuse. Just give me a note and I'll basically go there by myself.

The 'I can do this in 5 minutes from start to end' quests could of been easily considered unmarked such as 'I Don't Hurt Anymore' and 'Medical Mystery', regardless of whether or not you do it the long way or not on either. Plus, it would of made my quest tab look a lot less crowded. Having 70+ quests is fun and all but some aren't exactly what you could be the definition of 'quest' to begin with.

My guess with Booted is because it's a Boone-history-point quest, as well as a Powder Gangers rep quest AND one of the few early Legion encounters, therefore they wanted to make sure you didn't miss it. But yeah, I agree w/things like that vs. the Contreras quest. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.