So I say I always take 1 in strength as to make the weight I can carry actually believable but in turn would take the Pack Rat Perk? That makes no sense to me!

Compared to any AAA game in the last seven years, FONV is the apex of uniqueness.
I like the FO1/2 special better (especially that checks are stat*skill rather than having stats just boost a skill a set %). But those days are sadly pretty far behind us.

This

I mean compare FONV to Skyrim. You have a speech skill that mainly effects sale price, and lockpicking which is mostly pointless since shear numbers of lockpicks overcomes low skill. Every other skill is a combat skill. Even if all the skills are for combat, you'd think that they could toss a few skill checks in there... if not part of normal gameplay than surely something major like attaining the rank archmage should require a skill check on your magic skills... but NO. You can be archmage with no magic at all.

Or compare it to Fallout 3... Skills are rarely used to solve quests or interact with the world outside of the odd speech check and unlocking computers/locks. Plus in vanilla it's more than possible to max every skill by level 20 if you have high intelligence and pick up the odd bubblehead/book. Skills don't matter when you're a master of all of them!

And, frankly, Skyrim and FO3 are masters of character building when compared to other 'RPGs' of this generation or last.
Mass Effect was abysmal, and Mass Effect 2 practically discarded character building of any kind - leaving you to choose which order you unlock your upgrades in. With no perks forcing you to specialize, Morrowind and Oblivion let you grind to be a master of all. Let's just not talk about KotOR's anemic skill selection. DA is passable... but uninspired... and in awakening you get FAR too many points and specializations allowing you to do almost everything.
And for ALL of those listed, the skills are practically all combat abilities.

Because New Vegas allows you to use your skills in so many ways, there is no 'dump' stat that is totally useless, which makes your choices more important. And it's limited (compared to FO3 and other beth games) selection of perks/points per level forces you to specialize. They've kinda ruined it with the DLC (by level 50 you're able to do everything), but at least they gave us a perk to cap at 30 and limit the craziness.
Again, I long for skill checks that calculate 'Skill * Stats', so that the stats have relevance again... but for now I'm just thankful that we got one last RPG where skills and perks are more than tiered combat unlocks.