The models Bethesda created for the human models in Fallout 3 just didn't look good and sadly that had to be used in New Vegas. Lastly, the Fallout Character Overhaul I like using is essential, for me.
That's why those two companion mods are great. Perhaps Joshua and Ulysses should return to the Mojave and help you win this war. There are times where peace should prevail, then there is a time of action that people must take up arms against a fascist regime that can't be convinced to step down. The Legion are trying to take over Mojave and destroy the fabric of society that's managed to have been rebuilt since the Great War. There are mods like the Joshua Graham and Ulysses companion mods, to me, story wise, they should have been companions. But I wondered, could I play the game again without any mods? Maybe I couldn't live without the YUP bug patch, anti-crash, 4GB and the Stutter Remover mods due to the game having technical problems. If I changed too much of the gameplay or installed quest mods, it would feel less like New Vegas, I enjoy the way it is because that's what made me like the game in the first place (except the bugs, of course). My aim is to improve the visuals and some parts of the gameplay here and there. Then roughly two years ago, I returned to New Vegas and I always wanted to come back playing with mods.
For my time playing Fallout New Vegas, I've played it mostly vanilla because of the consoles. One of my goals is to help other players have perfectly modded and perfectly stable games - and thats not some sort of exaggeration.