It seems to me that whenever I encounter a weapon mod, I have no need of it. For example, by the time I even found a sniper rifle, I had already looted the rare version. By the time I collected all the mods for the varmint rifle, I had already found Ratslayer. I'm pretty sure a lot of people find Annabelle before they even have a normal missile launcher... etc.

Granted, I have found 102 locations so far and I tend to explore every nook and cranny, something not every player does. However, I just think that they could have been added in a more useful for everyone way.

One way might have been to tie-in mods with the Repair skill (I know I know, it's already very useful as it is) so that at 45 you can use a larger magazine mod, at 75 you get a scope mod, at 90 you get +DAM mod etc.. maybe add a component requirement like conductors, scrap metal etc.

Sure, you can just park your butt in front of a merchant and wait 70 some hours repeatedly, but that breaks immersion, isn't very fun and you don't always have the caps for it. Plus, it's always Sunday on the Xbox 360 (due to a bug) when you load your game, so merchant inventories are screwy.

I think there's isn't always enough incentive to use the regular modded weapons, the rare versions are a bit too superior sometimes.

Lastly.. I think that melee weapons could have really used some mod-lovin'. Spikes/blades on a baseball bat anyone?

If they were more spread out I think that would address the problem well enough. The first time I encountered any mods was at the Gunrunner robot and he had about 10 of them (all for guns I didn't use ). Caravan merchants and town merchants should almost always carry one or two. The scaling code should be examined as well. I don't need a mod for a 9mm pistol or varmint rifle at level 18, but I would've loved them at level 5. Likewise, a sniper rifle mod would be useless at level 5.

Ya it's kind of dumb how you have to buy them and can't find them any where, but for the uniques already having the mods, not very many do.