nomedable

I'm fairly sure I remember it used to be 100% for bites. I can remember an update which had something along the lines of "to stop players immediately choosing suicide after being bitten, we've reduced bite infection to 96% to give players a reason to keep going, to keep hoping, even as their sickness spreads". EDIT* Snooped around and yes it was 100% back in the 1.4a day's (you probably weren't around during that version), it was indeed 100%. http://pzwiki.net/wiki/Patch_0.1.4a

It seems that the idea was similar to the "uncommon" infected in L4D. There would be regular zombies that just were slightly different. For example constrution worker zeds had hardhats and hearing protection (deaf but take more damage?). It seems more like a minor variation in inventory.

While I can see how this can be a problem gameplay-wise, most houses (at least in north america) have hot water heaters. Which are basically tanks of water. Even with no power or water coming into the house, the tanks should still have water in them, which could supply the sinks/toliets/tubs/showers.