Just felt like throwing this out there, but your Skills in guns on this game (Small Guns, Big Guns, Energy Weapons) does -not- at all affect your accuracy in shooting when in or out of VATS. It actually determines the amount of damage you deal with said weapons, which is kind of dumb if you ask me. It'd make more sense if it affected accuracy, but I'm not sure what Beth was thinking. Kind of makes it frustrating when you have 100(maxed out) in a skill level but your accuracy is the same as it was when when you had it at 10. (Which kind of kills the Role Playing Game aspect in a way)
Not sure why they made it this way in Fallout3, since in Fallout 1 and 2 your skill level affected your accuracy and the amount of damage you dealt (hey, kind of like in Final Fantasy XI!), but I guess it makes sense if they wanted to put the emphasis on using VATS. Cuz, I mean, the only way to actually raise your accuracy with weapons is if you take perks (Commando, Sniper, Targeted Shot), and these only raise your accuracy when using VATS.
Meh, I guess what I'm trying to say is that Fallout 3 is a very weird game when it comes to Role Playing game mechanics (Stats wise) and First Person shooter mechanics, because it seems to fall short on both aspects, but who am I kidding. The environment is great, the story is a huge improvement over Oblivion, and they generally succeeded in capturing the spirit of the original Fallouts.