I'd love it if the Courier would mutter back something along the lines of...
"Look, if I wanted into that, I would have gotten into that by now. There ain't a damn thing you can do about it. So just sit down, shut the -beep- up, have a Nuka break and leave me alone."
That reminds me of the reply you can give when first entering Big Town in FO3, something along the lines of "I'm King (Queen) of the Wasteland. I'll do what I want to do and there's nothing you can do to stop me." It was hilarious because it was true.
Good to hear that the reactions to kicking cans and the like are gone in New Vegas. I can't say the reactions ever really bothered me, but just when I had forgotten about them, some NPC would scream "Hey! Watch it!" and I'd startle and turn every which way to find the cause of the alarm - then I'd remember and see the can or wrench at my feet. I mean, who in their right mind would see a hulking bearded man from the wastes, armed to the teeth, possibly with a reputation for
nuking an entire town, and then yell at him for kicking a piece of garbage in the street?
Oh, the topic of mini games, I really like the lock picking mini game in FO3, as it really added to the immersion for me and wasn't difficult or time consuming to do. I would like to see it made real time, however, for the added tension, and the encouragement of making sure you were safe and no enemies were around before rifling through locked containers. It would also prevent the 'classic' tactic of crouching behind an NPC, scooting around until [HIDDEN] appeared and quickly accessing the locked container in question - somehow warping time to allow you to spend as long as you wanted to pick the lock and remove all the items you wanted, all with the NPC remained oblivious because time had frozen for them. It would be a simple thing I would think to just have you booted out of the mini game if you were attacked and hit, and just have a message appear along the lines of "You have been seen." if an NPC has become alarmed.
On the other hand, while I found the hacking mini game immersive enough as well, it quickly became tedious, and really brought all gameplay and pacing to a dead halt, with the mini game potentially taking several minutes to complete. I would prefer it to be real time as well, but I would like to see something other than the Mastermind clone as the actual game. In my opinion, it should be something as easily and quickly completed as the lock picking mini game if you possess a high enough Science skill. In all honesty, after my first playthrough, where I read and accessed most of the consoles, I tend to ignore them in every subsequent playthrough because they take so long to hack. Not to mention you are not guaranteed to win the Mastermind clone game even if you have 100 skill in Science and know what to do. You can still run out of attempts before succeeding if you make a poor choice for your first attempt and are unlucky.