I wouldn't have skipped Point Lookout, but I definitely wouldn't have included the Lovercraft fanboyism of Bethesda. Mothership Zeta should have been skipped entirely.
The only thing wrong with OWB is every fucking thing. The Think Tank were shut down pretty quickly by Mobius, effectively dooming them to exist doing nothing, so it's safe to assume most of the Think Tank tech appearing in the game is pre-war. And they're still a million times more advanced than the Enclave who had more than a century completely left to their own devices.
The only things that bugged me about OWB technology were the Transportalponder (conveniences don't have to be lore-destroying) and the fucking vendor machines in the Sierra Madre (this is matter transmutation, something that basically makes
everything possible = a shitty move).
Only because Mobius shut the Think Tank down to a loop doesn't mean they didn't do anything in the mean time (think of the bazillion new titles Dr Dala mentions). They just did no longer question their goals or the world around them. The fence is post war afaik. As are the lobotomites and thus the artificial organs technology.
And you overlooked one of the frequently brought up themes of Old World Blues, which is how miserably the Think Tank failed. Saturnite? Good, but impractical, since it's
too good (Cosmic knives). The Hazmat suit? Susceptible to rust and not even suited for it's main purpose, aside from being extremely uncomfortable to wear. The whole Cazador and Nightstalker fiasco (the gene-splicing was certainly done post-war, fence works only for lobotomites, because tesla coils)? They didn't even get these things could reproduce. The Stealth suit was fine, but couldn't generate the stealth-field the Chinese pre-war scientists applied to their own upgraded version. Most of the facilities lie in ruin. I wouldn't consider any of these technologies too advanced.
Most of the pre-war stuff was prototypes anyway.
Imo Old World Blues was next to the best a setting with advanced wacky Science! could come up with, aside from the mentioned technologies.
Now, not to derail (or re-rail) the discussion, but you know one thing I really appreciate about Fallout 3? Mirelurks. For all the flak we the superfans gave Bethsoft at the beginning over not coming up with anything original for their games, there was a lot of complaining going on about these "stupid mutated mudcrabs" when they were probably one of the best standout original creations the series had seen since Radscorpions. They capture the Midnight Horror Matinee aesthetic perfectly, their arthropodal anatomy grants them an intimidating alien presence, and, unlike (F2's/the Fallout Bible's retcon of) deathclaws, Wannamingos, and almost every other inexplicable wasteland horror, they're mutated via radiation from recognizable stock and have absolutely nothing to do with FEV.
I fucking agree. The Pulowski preservation shelters were also a nice addition.
Plus, Fallout 3 did indeed have some interesting characters (like Eden on the radio before you meet him or Scribe Bigsely from BS. Rivet City was also a nice environment with the whole Bannon/Seagrave Holmes arc, Vera Weatherly and Father Clifford and the marriage, Mr Lopez, Harkness [who surprisingly wasn't overshadowed as a character by his ANDROID state - unlike Eden the flashy ZAX], Anna Holt and Tammy Hargrave) that unfortunately didn't get quite the exposition they needed as actual beings less than decoration.