I also really wish that instead of guns and energy weapons that it was instead small guns versus large guns. Would make a lot more sense and also give players more damage type options (bullets vs plasma vs lasers).
I'm confused about what you mean by this. They just moved what used to be Small and Large guns into 'Guns', and moved some of the Large Guns out into Explosives and whatnot. There's still way more options in terms of what you can use to perforate bandits with, the skill categories are just a little more sane.
Also, I just did that Helios One or whatever the mission is at that power plant. Had a strange bug where 1 of the NCR Troopers and 5 dogs were aggressive, and killing them made me slightly lose reputation with the NCR, but none of the watching NCR troopers gave a shit.
Also HARDCORE MOOOOODE isn't that bad. It's entirely independent of difficulty, so if you can play Hardcore Very Easy if you want to. You just have to stock up on Doctor's Bags (to heal crippled limbs), and prefer food and water to heal you over stimpacks, since they'll heal you and reduce your FOO and H2O stats as well. And there's plenty of water and food around there.