I 100% agree with you. I was downvoted a lot of times years ago saying about as much on reddit. I like the iron-sights and some mechanics of NV that 3 didn’t have, but the storyline in 3 was so much better.
In 3, there was a tremendous core story that you played a pivotal role in and had a grand sense of purpose. But in NV, you’re just a random courrier doing random tasks and just kinda meandering around for “revenge” which comes and goes pretty anticlimacticly. And then you get to decide which factions to support in a battle that’s going to happen regardless.
In NV, it feels more like the player character is a side-character in the main story’s plot. In Fallout 3, you were the main plot.