Even with an Int of 2 (an extreme case, clearly someone going for a particular build), that's still only a difference between 12 points per level and 20. It's not like 2 Int gives you no points at all.

With a 5 Int (average, where it starts), that's only 15 points/level vs 20/level. Trivial difference. (Some of the "max all skills by lv20" guides I saw, mentioned that you could do it on an Int of 4, if you did everything else perfect.)

Leveling was fast enough (plus the game isn't super-hard, honestly) that you wouldn't need that many skill points that quickly. (i.e, unless you were really hot to unlock a 100 skill lock ASAP, I can't think of any situation in the game where you'd need to be super-skilled at low level...)

This seems like an entirely different issue from "forced to max out skill points to not be gimped." I'm wondering what the criteria for "gimped" is, at this point.

Each attribute should have a signficant effect in its sphere of influence. You should notice it, and feel it, when one or more of your attributes is not up to snuff. There should be situations in the game where Agility matters, and If your Agility is low, then you will have difficulty handling those situations. Likewise, if your Intelligence is low, then you should have difficulty in situations that call for a high intelligence. That you can feel the impact of a less-than-perfect Intelligence means that Bethesda did Intelligence right. That you do not feel the impact of the other attributes means that Bethesda may have done those other attributes wrong.

Your argument lambasts Intelligence for having a strong effect in its sphere of influence. Your argument does not say, "Attributes should matter." It says quite the opposite.

Attributes absolutely should matter, but they should be somewhat balanced against each other too. Intelligence has been disproportionately valuable in any Fallout game, while other stats like Charisma have typically been much less valuable; but if we're deciding whether we should put a point in IN or CA at chargen, we should be getting a somewhat equitable deal for our point either way. That's the problem I had with the older games.

Fallout 4 manages to avoid a lot of the weird issues the older games had by not having a level cap. Restricting the best perks to high SPECIAL instead of high level does a much better job of balancing out leveling, and it makes leveling a whole lot more nonlinear, since you're not just deciding between the level 20 level cap perks, or level 30, or whatever.

No, the argument is that one skill is vastly more important than all others.

The amount it matters is up for debate but the fact that one matters much more than all others is wrong.

In the old games, every attribute had noticeable impact (though even then there were balance issues.) You got more skill points with higher INT but that was offset by the usefulness of the other attributes.

In Fallout 3 it was pretty much all about skills - attributes weren't terribly impactful and just about the only one with concrete and noticeable effects was INT.

The original idea was that a high INT build needed more and broader skills to make up for a lack in other areas (and conversely a build that focused in other areas didn't need as wide a range of skills.)

Looks to be "fixed" in Fallout 4 though.