Balance isn't an end, but it is a means to an end. If you make a pizza do you say "I won't put dough before toppings"? In a pizza the crust is the most boring thing, but its also something you can't do without. Toppings are a lot more fun, but if they aren't on a crust then you don't have a pizza -- just a pile of crap burnt onto a pizza pan. And so it is with video game design. Having a cool idea for a sword or a spell or whatever isn't going to mean much if it is horribly underpowered to the point no one uses it, or horribly overpowered to the point it breaks the game.
Fallout 3 is full of great examples of terrible and unbalanced game design. Something that comes to mind is the Chinese Stealth Suit in FO3. It is like wearing a permanent stealth boy that is permanently active all the time and makes you invisible to everything. Sounds cool, right? Well, if you enjoy going around with that OP shotgun in the game and one shot killing everything from stealth with sneak attack criticals from each of the 6 pellets of the shotgun, then I guess that would be fun to you, but where's the challenge? To a lot of people that gets boring.
FNV is a far better game not just because of the infinitely better writing, but because of the gameplay improvements and balance Josh Sawyer brought. He nerfed the shit out of countless things, and went even further with his unofficial mod. With his hardcore mode and his mod, the game comes close to having some semblance of challenge that FO3 never had. Stimpacks heal gradually over time instead of instantly and are more scarce; Base carrying capacity is reduced to 80 pounds so you can no longer carry around 5,000 pounds of gear on your back; food, water and sleep are requirements to live; etc. Things are still far from perfect, but considering he only 18 months to do everything and the limitations of the shitty Gamebryo engine it is pretty impressive what he did compared to the unbalanced mess that Todd Howard made.
Todd Howard designs his games putting "fun" first, and completely ignore balance. Obviously that is cool for a lot of people since those games sell millions of copies, but not everyone thinks getting OP power armor right at the start of the game or having immortal companions is such a great idea. POE doesn't have "fun" things like Fatman launchers, game breaking permanent stealth suits, invincible companions, OP perks, hotkeyable insta-heal stimpaks, or other junk game mechanics, but it is a far better game in my eyes. It certainly will never sell as much, but that in and of itself is a poor indicator of quality.