Which one, Fear&Loathing or Viva New Vegas?
Either way, I did, and would do, certainly just that. With these guides, the authors goes pretty crazy with their recommendation but it's fine since many kinds of people use their guides. But as a Fine Codex Gentleman™ I'm also something of a purist myself, so I prefer to keep the mods to the mininum and only really go crazy with models, retextures, and stuff because, good Lord, ain't Gamebryo such an ugly sore to look at.
Here's for my personal recommendation rip off from Viva New Vegas but only for the most essential for stability and perfomance improvement for mininalist mod list
- Utilities
https://vivanewvegas.github.io/core-utilities.html
xNVSE (You need this even for not extensive modding)
New Vegas Anti Crash
New Vegas Tick Fix
Mod Limit Fix
These mod is very essential for the most stable game.
Don't install JIP LN NVSE and Johnny Guitar NVSE because i believe this mod only used for much more extensive modding hardly needed for minimalist but it doesnt harm if you add them to use it at later date.
- Bugfix
YUP Unofficial Bug Fix Only
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/51664
- Optional
JE Sawyer mod or it's derivatives which are you prefer some of them is already included fix from YUP so it's not necessary to install it.
- UI Mod
Recommendation from here
https://vivanewvegas.github.io/core-hud.html
And that's it you don't even need mod manager such as mod organizer 2 or need extensive knowledge of FNVEdit if you install all that and read the instruction carefully.
I think the game is fine the way it is, adding high quality texture from 2020 only just make it worse because it was not mean to be used for 2010 game. It's just my opinion.