Can somebody please give me a similar list of situations when Small Guns or Speech is useful?
I can. In Fallout 1 Speech is only used 15 times in the whole game (and one of those is if you fail a Speech check), in Fallout 2 it is used way more (I don't know the number), BUT at least 1/3 of the times where you can use Speech to achieve an outcome, you can also use Attribute values (CHA, INT, etc), other skills or specific Perks to achieve the same outcome. There are also quite a lot of Speech checks that depend not only on your Speech skill, but also on your Attribute values (not only you have to have a specific Speech value, you ALSO have to have a specific Attribute value). Making more than half the times you use Speech dependent on also having specific Attribute values or doesn't really require Speech and can be achieved in other ways (Attributes and Perks). Speech is useful, but also not that useful compared to the number of times we use ONLY the Speech skill to achieve something.
Small Guns in Fallout and Fallout 2 is only used in combat, there is no Small Guns skill check in the entire game and there is no content that is only accessible if the character uses Small Guns. But in contrast, Unarmed Skill in Fallout 1 has one exclusive use (you can make an unarmed attack on a particular character and immediately knock him out if you also pass a Sneak check) and in Fallout 2 there are quite a few instances and quests that you can only access if you have good Unarmed Skill (Temple of Trials final fight, Several boxing matches, a few Martial Art fights, etc) there are a few Unarmed skill checks in dialogue too.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that in Fallout, only 4 out of 15 Speech checks are dependent on Speech skill alone (4 requires INT of at least 6, 1 requires INT of 5 and night time, one requires INT 7, one requires INT 8 or Berserker trait AND you have to FAIL the Speech check, 1 you have to have a weapon in the active slot, 1 you have to spend a night in a specific building, 1 you have to have killed a specific character and 1 you have to have an item or read that item or have INT 7). So basically, in Fallout 1 if you have INT 5 (average) you are automatically locked out of 1/3 of all the speech checks in the game, no matter how much Speech you have.
In Fallout 2 there are only a very small % of Speech checks that give anything significant, that you can't get in another way (like getting the same result by paying a bit more caps or get paid less caps for a job) or that you can't get by using other Attributes, Skills, Perks to achieve the same result.
The games do give a good illusion that Speech is really OP, and it makes the players feel rewarded for investing in Speech. But Speech is rarely used to get any significant, unique rewards that can't be achieved in other ways.
