I honestly think FO2 would have been improved by cutting New Reno altogether.
Nah. New Reno is iconic, a great hub world, and a land of opportunity.
Many players consider FO2 to be a "wow" title because it lets you do porn, boxing and jobs for the mafia. It's a neat little mechanic that distinguishes Fallout 2 from other RPGs (especially over here many RPG enthusiasts went like "This is not your dad's fantasy game!"), even in the most superficial way, and also, New Reno is just full of colourful personalities in general.
The main problem with New Reno is that there's way too many quest lines that use it as a pit stop. Want to help mutants in Broken Hills? Go to Renesco. And do it fast, because otherwise your character forgets the password received from Zaius. So you basically run an errand over the entire world map. Wanna solve the Bishop - Lynette - Westin tensions one way or another? Travel A LOT between VC, NR and NCR. You bring Westin's head to Bishop and he immediately asks you to kill Carlson, who's also in NCR. It's just really padded and I think one of the reasons why FO2, being a more complex, richer (more build possibilities, better weapon progression) mechanically, is also often really tedious to finish and people get burnt out, while Fallout 1 never overstays its welcome. Like, in Fallout 2 I really enjoy making an Unarmed or Melee character, because I know I will get new, cool weapons (and Unarmed maneuvers) at a steady pace to prevent me from fatigue, whereas in FO1, I'm stuck with Brass Knuckles / regular Sledge and have no sense of progression (Cattle Prod / Ripper are hard to find and don't fill any niche for a meaningful period of time) until I can finally get Super Sledge / Power Fist. On the other hand, Fallout 2 takes a little bit longer to get going.
Personally, I also never thought that Fallout's time limit was a big deal. The new patches castrated the 500 day limit after bringing the waterchip, and even my first playthrough, I was never strapped for time while constantly Resting until Healed with a low EN character. The most time-consuming activity is BoS stat upgrading, which takes in-game weeks, but it doesn't eat a lot of time even in the post-Waterchip game, so I doubt the 500 day limit would have helped. Also, on your first playthrough, you might often not even realize the "timed" events where mutants wipe out the map. Last time I played and had some notes from Per Jorner on invasion time limit to witness the changes, but Necropolis and Hub still stood the way they did because my first-time visit occurred "before" the invasion timer. My post-game still said that Hub and Necropolis have dispersed, but I couldn't really understand why if they were fine in-game. Even if I did see dispersed Necropolis, well, I wouldn't have been able to figure out that it's not the default state of the town and that I was too late there.
I mean, if you were a first-timer to Fallout 2, you'd probably also think that Arroyo getting ruined was because you were tardy, while thinking that you've unlocked some really cool "Bad Ending". It's a really neat thing that it's there, but I don't think it's that special in particular, and I love Fallout 1. All the 150 day limit does is keep your exploration somewhat focused. It's not like there's a lot of quests that force you to move back and forth between, say, Junktown and Hub. But you are not going to look at a timer that goes "90 days remaining" and decide to just randomly take a walk on the Atlantic.