Get rid of those freaking Freeside Thugs, or at least fix the game so they actually disappear after they are killed.
What's wrong with Freeside thugs? They don't put up a good fight, but they do give Freeside some flavor.
On the topic of what would I change.
- I'd make the weapon softrequirements have an actual punch and have higher tier weapons appear much earlier in the game (on vendors and on people).
- I'd notch up the HC mode, rework the levelscaling scheme and make the difficultyslider more effective.
- I'd boost up the RPG mechanics across the board (increase the effects of the skills and stats) and increase the gaps between the levels.
- I'd also balance out the amount of stuff there is to do with other factions than the NCR.
- Also, off with the quest compass, replace it with a mapmarker (plus make the enemycompass a perk enabled ability, if not get rid of it all together).
- Rework the the fasttravel to be caravan based or at least make it toggleable from the options menu (and make sure there are as few as possible back-and-forth quests, which complement it).
- Remove the number indications from the skill dialog thresholds (a simple color scheme would suffice).
- Replace the lockpicking and hacking minigames with appropriately implemented skillchecks.
- And if not by default, I'd apply the above gameplay changes within the HC mode.