I've decided, at least tentatively, that scavenging supplies and materials from ruins and fallen foes should fall under the category of Outdoorsman, because what else would we do with it?
This way, even the most dedicated Craft Boy (a new archetype!) will have to specialize. You could either make low-level guns, armor, drugs, etc., all on one person, or you could make the best armor but virtually no firearms. Splitting the crafting system across multiple skills like that makes for replay value and encourages diversification amongst the player base. I feel that there should be some sort of experience award, albeit a small one, for successful crafting, so that killing enemies is not the only way to gain levels. Repair might be generalized to "Mechanical" (to some extent in canon, it already is) and be used in the production of goods as well as their upkeep.
Let me give you an example of how this player-crafted economy would work.
Player A made a ghoul with tags on sneak, outdoorsman, and melee. The advantage of the ghoul is the ability to explore irradiated places that no other race can, and sneaking around avoiding hideous mutated beasts lets Player A scavenge a whole bunch of raw materials (outdoorsman affected the quality and quantity of ingredients). Unfortunately, Player A can't exactly do anything with them, as his science, repair, etc., skills are low. He might be able to fashion some crude leather armor or a combat knife, but that'd be about it.
But if Player A takes his materials to Player B, who is playing a Science Boy with tags on science (obviously), repair, and melee weapons (need to have a high skill with the weapon to create good ones, due to knowing the style, function, etc, of the particular group), player B might be able to build him a nice brutal Ripper.
If Player A takes his materials to Player C, who specialized in outdoorsman instead of melee, Player C might be able to build a nice suit of armor, even combat armor. Power armor should eventually be able to be constructed by players, but it should take a GREAT ordeal and plenty of time and effort to do so, and they should be so limited by materials as to be relatively rare. If you're the only guy on the server able to make power armor, you should be able to essentially name your price for it.
In this fashion, the most self-sufficient character might be one with tags on small guns, outdoorsman, and sneak. He could wander the wastes taking on prey he could handle and avoiding those he couldn't.
I can't help but think slightly in an MMORPG mindset when imagining skill combinations, so I'll jot down a few character archetypes for you, mostly drawn from other examples of the genre:
The "tank" - tags on outdoorsman (this may affect how protective your armor is, haven't quite decided), melee or unarmed, and speech (as I've mentioned before, speech affects your ability to draw the enemy's attention), high EN, ST, and CH
The "rogue" - tags on sneak, melee, and outdoorsman, wandering the wastes scavenging pre-war tech, very effective in close combat but relatively fragile.
The "doc" - tags on doctor and first aid, obviously, possibly speech as well, with high IN and CH. Could be your primary buffer/healer, though could be a bit of a combat hybrid if given an appropriate skill.
The "glass cannon" or "mage" - A science-type character with that tagged and energy weapons, with high IN and AG - energy weapons can be heavily damaging, but require high science skill in order to use properly. It's more than point and shoot, people. He can kill things quickly, but heaven forbid something turns its attention to him. Alternatively, this could be a supermutant with big guns, being less of a glass cannon, but the character would be rather one-dimensional and would not be able to accomplish much on its own. My feeling is that the supermutant with a minigun archetype would be popular amongst traditionalist MMO players, as it would be focused solely on combat effectiveness, but mutants will have restricted armor choices and not be allowed in certain areas of the game without high speech or sneak skills, which few would have.
The "grenadier" - well, typically there's at least one character class that employs area of effect attacks and/or crowd control, and the use of grenades could do that - tags on throwing, traps, sneak for more effective planting of mines and the like.
The "merchant" - tags on barter and repair will allow him to set up shop and charge for the upkeep of equipment. Having higher barter automatically set prices higher when trading is a bit arbitrary and goes against the freedom of the players to engage in economic activity on their own terms, but perhaps high barter would be a requirement to put something up for auction or to obtain a merchant's license. I think it should be perfectly viable for a player, if they choose, to never engage in combat at all, instead building a financial empire or becoming a scientific genius cooped up in a lab. It just so happens that combat might be a little quicker, a little easier.
Ideally, every character should have some combat skill at least partially developed, unless they're extremely dedicated to pacifism. I want to see great specialization, though. I want a town flourishing with ghoulish scientists and supermutant enforcers, human doctors and the inevitable outpouring of warriors of all color, creed, and level of irradiation. Most of all, I would want people to have fun playing it in whatever way they'd have the most fun. The twitch gamers and MMO addicts could go out and grind the wasteland should they so choose (most likely running out of ammunition or having their gun jam, ensuring a dependence on other players), and the more RP oriented players can hang out in town, build factions and guilds, perhaps start caravans and merchant consortiums.
And, of course, if a group of players wants to form a camp of raiders, why not? The more law-abiding citizens may put together a posse to wipe them out now and then, but that just forms what I like to call "motivated PvP" which is far superior to generic, arbitrary "I'm going to gank you because I can" PvP.
Still at a loss as to what to do with steal and gambling, but at least outdoorsman and barter have more use now.
ADDENDUM:
A quick rundown of how stats would matter in game:
Strength: melee damage, carry weight. Relatively unchanged.
Perception: range modifiers, increased chance to detect sneakers, notice traps. Might affect ranged damage as well. Mainly unchanged.
Endurance: HP, resistances.
Charisma: The main changed element. Charisma requirements for certain quests, requiring parties to recruit "leaders" to tackle bigger challenges, makes warriors more intimidating, better prices from NPC stores (also a function of barter), better reactions from NPC factions (think of WoW's reputation grind, but more akin to Tactics' rank system - higher CH players will be able to put in less work to access higher level equipment and supplies from merchants)
Intelligence: Skill points - a character with high IN could be an effective jack-of-all-trades or an extremely effective Craft Boy.
Agility: In real-time, this should control the regeneration rate of AP as well as the maximum amount. With 1 AG, you might get AP at a rate of one every two seconds, allowing you to fire every ten seconds, with 10 AG, you would get perhaps 3 or 4 AP in the same span. Let's say about a half-second reduction in attack cooldown for each point, for the sake of argument. Starting at, oh eight. At 10 AG you're attacking every what, five seconds with a pistol, at 1, twice as slow. This would require extensive tweaking to balance correctly. Ten seconds would probably be too long between shots, unless you're using a sniper rifle and retraining your target. Two seconds for a rapid fire pistol might be too fast, I don't know.
Luck: Critical chance, but should incorporate other elements to avoid being a dump stat. Could affect the chance to find and scavenge materials (higher luck characters might find better items in trash piles and lockers), maybe a dodge bonus as well or a chance to reduce a critical to a normal hit. Penalties for lower luck should be dropped in favor of advantages for higher luck - I wouldn't want to overly penalize min-maxers, because they WILL. EXIST.
. A permadeath world would also force you from the start to join a guild or else you would be pretty much fuck, one would never survive alone.
. How do you make people work for something without the work part being work?