Game Informer brought up toilet drinking before you did Bartoneus, and it seemed quite explicit, although they could be wrong of course.
Game Informer said:
Food or soda will help improve your hit points slightly, and stimpacks (a sort of injection) can be a big help. As mentioned before, water can also give a boost. Sometimes the only way to completely fill up on health is to drink from some fixed water source repeatedly, like a toilet bowl in a forgotten subway station.
Your predicted targeting system would be seriously flawed, so I don't think it is what they are planning. Most importantly, it would reward player skill over that of the character. It would also require multiple awkward systems of damage mechanics.
Let us think about simply trying to hit an enemy character. At a minimum range you would almost be guaranteed to get the cursor on the enemy. This range would likely be quite large and battles fairly close, so the situation could be quite common if the environment has cover, such as the hills and city ruins mentioned in the press (as has infinite free pausing). Now, if you are saying that a free-hand targeted shot will hit a location if you are manually skilled enough, it should also hit the larger target of the chest. A few shots in quick succession, and the target is dead with a pathetic guns skill.
Crucially, I take it that you mean there is no dice roll without V.A.T.S., contradicting traditional S.P.E.C.I.A.L. mechanics. If there was, you would be doubly punished for aiming for a headshot, also flawed, but more likely. I wouldn't be surprised if you can only aim in V.A.T.S. in an attempt not to encourage twitch play, but rather use of 'strategy'. It is plausible that you can only target with the V.A.T.S. targeting gimmick, just as you are forced to perform tiresome minigames rather than have a simple roll. It would similarly not be 'immersive' or consistent to set up a different, parallel system where you hit every time, but do damage based on character skill. (By the way, how do missile weapons work in Oblivion everyone?)
If we extend this thinking to melee, then we are always close up, so we would be effectively eliminating these skills completely, as the minimum range would always be present. This would only work with the just discounted system of changing damage based on character skill, again setting up a clunky parallel system.
So yes, ammo may be scarce and it might be difficult to get a manual head shot, but that is not what you do the majority of the time, so it could cause one to avoid V.A.T.S. to avoid computer determined misses early in the game, preserving precious resources. Then when your gun skill is high enough enough you might want to use V.A.T.S. to get headshots etc. The emphasis on specialisation might mean people don't waste points on character skill when their real dexterity is just fine. Furthermore, as you progress into a game, you are likely to amass more wealth, resources and access to more traders, so ammo could become less of a concern.
I hope for a targeting default toggle for use in real time, like in Fallout: Tactics, but don't expect it.
