That's was such a fo3 copout. The dumbest.

Absolutely.

They fixed it in the Tale of Two Wastelands megamod though, amongst many other things.

ToTW with DLC is the only good way to replay 3 and a damn fine way of replaying NV too if you ask me. Even if you don't!

Edit: oops, seems it was Broken Steel that fixed that part. I stand by the rest, though.