Only thing I didn't like in New Vegas was the perk every 2 levels thing. At level 14, if your repair skill is 90 (at 14 you can set it at 90 and it counts) you can get the Perk called Jury Rigging. This repairs many items like, I think a 9mm pistol and smg will repair a 10mm pistol and smg, and vice versa. I'm a cheap-o so I pretty much always take repair.

Melee/Unarmed is pretty good in New Vegas as well. It wasn't bad in Fallout 3, it's just New Vegas has more options even at early levels. If you didn't know, strength affects Melee damage, and endurance affects Unarmed damage. Unarmed includes well, unarmed, and any fist type weapon. The difference between the 2 is that Unarmed attacks have such high crit modifiers. Iirc, Melee weapons are as strong and many are stronger than Unarmed gear, but their crit chance is low or their crit modifier is low. I can't really remember the details as I played this game like 2 or 3 years ago.

Hope it helps when it comes to picking between the 2. The downside is that Melee stat # is required for Melee/Unarmed perks. 80 Melee and 80 sneak at 20 for Ninja, 45 Melee for Super Slam. The only perk requiring Unarmed is Slayer at 24 with 90 Unarmed and 7 AGI. It's a cool perk that increases attack speed by 30% for both weapon types. My first playthrough I ran guns and melee. Second I ran guns and unarmed and that was ridiculously fun.