Intelligence is fine for the most part, in my book. You won't see many suggested builds with obscenely low intelligence in the same way you would with Charisma. Or to a certain degree, luck. Taking 1 in anything should be extremely undesirable.
The sadist in me would like to see 1/2 charisma characters able to talk to all traders, but not able to join groups of other players. You built you character like a loner, you have to play like one. But I'm not naive enough to believe that's ever going to happen, nor that it's really a good idea.
On the subject of SPECIAL, I'd think more variation in strength requirements would be interesting. Pistols requiring 3 strength across the board. SMGs requiring 4. Shotguns and rifles requiring five, etc.
I also hate how builds are built around perks, but what can you do? Other than remove the stat requirements. Which... would be fine, thinking about it.
