Am I the only one that's had this though?

[TomJ]

It feels like Fallouts 3 and 4 should have taken place around the same point as the original Fallout instead of 200 years after the bombs dropped. For example,
1. Both Bost...I mean Cawmonwealth and DC are still unstable and haven't even reached the same point as SoCal. (I have my own opinion on that).
2. There are still trappings of the pre war world like perfectly preserved skeletons.
3. Buildings are still standing when they obviously shouldn't be.
4. Too many F-ing feral ghouls.
5. Small population and poor to nonexistent agriculture.

I know setting 3 in 2177 and 4 in 2181 would have forced Bethesda to actually put some thought into the factions and story a bit more than just recycling work from the originals. I assume their laziness is why they didn't do something more creative with their writing and the world. I have my own ideas as to what would have made a better game, but 4 and Skyrim are at best mediocre games.

 

[Hassknecht]

Yeah, they would have made a lot more sense. But a) Bethesda couldn't have used the classic lore, and b) Bethesda never goes back in the timeline and c) they hate good writing.

 

[Tagaziel]

It feels like Fallouts 3 and 4 should have taken place around the same point as the original Fallout instead of 200 years after the bombs dropped. For example,
1. Both Bost...I mean Cawmonwealth and DC are still unstable and haven't even reached the same point as SoCal. (I have my own opinion on that).

This was also the case with Arizona and other eastern territories prior to Caesar's rise. Or the Mojave before the emergence of Mr House. It's part of the setting.

2. There are still trappings of the pre war world like perfectly preserved skeletons.
3. Buildings are still standing when they obviously shouldn't be.

I'll refer you to Fallout and Fallout 2, which both include freestanding pre-War buildings (including skyscrapers, nearly a century after they were nuked) and people living in the trappings of the pre-War world. Or perfecly preserved pre-War areas like the SAD. The latter is mostly an artifact of the small scale of the world.

4. Too many F-ing feral ghouls.

A point, yes. Or these are sentient ghouls gone crazy. Crazies were in Fo1 (infesting Necropolis' surface) and Fo2 (around Gecko).

5. Small population and poor to nonexistent agriculture.

Again, aforementioned Mojave, Arizona, et al. Also, not every part of the United States develops at the same pace, especially not with a group of people with a vested interest in keeping the surface disorderly.

 

[Mellow Mute]

They probably wanted to set the timeline far enough in the future after the first two games took place to avoid referring to them and not before the first game because it might be too soon after the holocaust.

Why not 300 years or more? I suppose you could argue that society might be able to spring back to life by then and they wanted to create a setting that is depressing and desolate in Fallout 3.

That didn't prevent them from going 180 with Fallout 4 only a a decade later and change the mood to colourful and cheerful, because Oblivion fans complained hard enough that Fallout 3 was too gloomy for their taste, but I suspect they had stopped caring about any continuity at that point and simply wanted to make a few references to Fallout 3. (something they have been very willing to do for their own games but not the ones developed by other studios - that would require understanding the source material and they wouldn't want to risk delving that deep, I suppose)