I'd like to see the option of starting in NV as well. Actually, I'd like to see a menu when you first select "New Game" that asks where you want to start, combined with the "inception" mod that got some discussion on the old forums. The idea is that if you start in NV, you travel back to DC when you sleep. You would not keep weapons and such between wastelands (at first), but you would keep XP. The idea is that a bullet to the brain requires some time to heal, and the Courier might "remember" his past in dreams. Once the train is taken from DC to NV, the mod would stop doing its thing, and the player can travel back and forth freely. The big difference from how things are now is that instead of waking up in Doc Mitchell's place, the player would wake up wherever they went to sleep, (after seeing the "9 years later" screen / whiteout effect) and be awarded some kind of challenge reward or accomplishment. Maybe a bonus SPECIAL point or something.
If you choose to start in DC, then I'd like to see a mod that reduces your level when you first get to NV from DC. The idea is that a bullet to the head is likely to cause some hefty brain damage, which is likely to make the player less skilled than they used to be. The mod would keep the whole character generation bit in Doc Mitchell's place intact. If some one were to get fancy with it you could have the option of how much to lower your level. So if the PC is level 20 when the train to NV is first taken, the mod might give the choice of doing the character generation (at the Vigor-Tester) with stats/skill points equivalent to level 20, 15, 10, 5, or 1. Something like that.
My problem is that aside from adjusting stats on weapons in FNVEdit and really minor tweaks like that, I am pretty useless as a modder. Any takers?