So with 300+ hours in Fallout 3 and 100+ hours in new vegas with my first playthrough I know how the game should work.
Lol no. You have no freaking clue.
Keep playing. Try 10 luck in casinos, try Dead Money. Then come back and tell us items are too expensive. At any rate, FO3 with it's 2000 cap economy definitely isn't a good reference point for New Vegas and it's 1,000,000 cap economy.