Yes, but that is quite inconvenient outside of the Sierra Madre. I wouldn't want to have to go to the ABoS bunker and engage in some back and forth with the vending machine when I can just go to a repair bench with all the crap I happened to collect and make the kits right there. And anyway, I use crafting for plenty of other stuff anyway.
Maybe, but with the exchance machine you only need to worry about cigarettes which weigh less (at least I think they do.).
And repair kits require several different items to craft, so if you have a lot of two but only some of the third (and fourth?) then you'll only be able to craft a certain amount.
With cigarettes you never need to worry about having the right number of items.
I found it a lot more convenient.

As a matter of fact, excluding the one repair kit at Jean Sky Diving I've never used another repair kit until DM.