Not seeing the asshole part of your critique. It’s fine to disagree with how certain parts of the game are done, as long as it doesn’t devolve into pointless mudslinging. That’s not what you’re doing, so I don’t see a problem.
I actually rather like the armour solution, because accurately trying to simulate all the different armour types and how they’d interact with all the weapon variants would require completely reworking how the combat works. That would take a lot of effort, without adding something that is crucial to the gameplay. I see the armour system as functional abstraction that helps to streamline something that might otherwise bog down combat. Same goes for the separation between head and body hits, it streamlines aiming for body parts without the downside of the old SPECIAL system (always aim for the brain).
If I’m also interpreting your suggestions correctly, they’d result in the fights going a lot slower and becoming more about grinding down the opposition. You’d have to redesign all the enemies to make that work, while you’d also lose the quick and lethal combat that they currently have.
Map will get more filled in as development continues. We’re basically just seeing the free-roaming aspect, while events and further interaction hasn’t been implemented yet. One example is how they’re planning on adding footprints to the game, so that you can tell where enemies are without seeing.
More diverse contracts are definitely planned as well. How they’ll balance the rewards will have to depend on how they’re planning to have the actual end-game scale.
Now, if you want to tackle realism, I’d point to the Perfect Focus perk. I’ve got an archer that sometimes shoots 12 arrows in the time span it takes a normal archer to shoot 2, each of those arrows doing as much damage as the two shots the other guy makes, if not more. Pretty unrealistic. (And if someone says “Lars Anderson” I will slap you with a chicken. Yes, I will bring a chicken to your actual house and beat you over the head with it.)
Who’s Lars Anderson?
