It's the only way to go if you're trying any sort of 'realistic' play. Try playing with 1 Endurance, no armour and, say, 1 stimpak: unless you're an absolute gaming god 'Stealthy Sniper' is the only way to stay alive (well, I suppose you could just not fight anything).
Tried that but with 3 endurance and only the 9mm pistol, no healing in combat at all.
No sneaking, tough to start with even with tactics.
However by level 8+ even no DT and all that most fights are easy on normal once you're familiar with the game and have a few more HP's to cover mistakes.