I felt that the merchants in the game were really weak, so I did my best trying to buff them. Most traveling merchants now have around 300 health, but still have Leather Armor with the exception of a couple of merchants in bad areas that I gave Reinforced Leather Armor. Some mercs have buffed health too, but not all of them.

This also makes traveling merchants respawn every few days so this may be useful and makes the roads a bit less empty.

Merchants are selling lots of goodies, so it didn't make sense to me that they give themselves such crappy weapons and armor to defend themselves.

Just as a side note, this does not affect every merchant, and it only affects certain traveling merchants. I fixed around 25 merchants, and there are 5 or 6 that I did not feel needed to be buffed because they were in areas like Novac or other areas where there isn't much of a threat.

Other suggested mods that this one goes well with:

Traveling Merchant Fix: http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/37107//? Fixes the inventories of some merchants that previously couldn't even trade.

Merchant Restock: http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/37344//? Fixes merchant inventories and helps restock them.