I started playing FO:NV (Ultimate Edition) several months ago. I liked everything about the game, except that I found it too easy. I was playing on hardcoe mode, on the second-highest difficulty level. I decided to put the game on the shelf for a while then restart it later with a difficulty-enhancing, realism-oriented mod. So that's what I'm doing now. It looks to me like my best options are either Project Nevada or Sawyer's mod. They both seem to have rebalancing and XP-reducing aspects that will make the game tougher in a realistic manner. PN offers a LOT more. I'm inclined to go with Sawyer's mod, since it seems to do what I want with minimal beyond that (I do realize that PN is modual so I can accomplish the same with it) and that it's made by someone associated with FO, thus feeling closer to "official," given that I still haven't actually played through the entire game.

Any feedback on that decision-making, or what I should go with?

Related question. I'm not looking to add any/many mods beyond a single rebalance, but...I've often looked at the Bounties quest mod, and thought it looked pretty cool. But it looks like it adds some new weapons, and both PN and Sawyer's mod include weapon rebalancing. Given that, does Bounties play well with either/both the rebalance mods I'm looking at?

I use the Bounties mod with Project Nevada and haven't had any issues.