Yeah, it stands out how the rivers are all the same ‘stamp,’ just with translation/rotation/scaling for variety. I’ve been able to massage the libnoise algorithms to make interesting, meandering rivers, but that was several alphas ago. I suspect they’ll always look a little off, since the water’s all at the same height instead of actually flowing downhill.
As for intelligent character design versus random chance, remember they’re literally stacking the deck in your favor.
Perks slightly affect the probability of finding like-themed magazines and parts for those recipes. Perk into shotguns and you will notice more shotgun magazines and shotgun parts appearing in the world. It isn't a significant bonus but it does prevent the player from being screwed over.
We’ll have to see whether this cheapens the looting experience. But the fact they’re adding such a system, and can tweak it to be more or less impactful, suggests they still care about your character build choices making a difference.