Looking closely and seeing it from a different perspective, Quinn might've been right though we still had to find the smaller treasure chests around this area before heading to that place—or even possibly contacting the old dude and see if we could be allies or not. Of course, we weren't doing ourselves any favors by taking his stuff but we did clear out the places where they couldn't be accessed and the rule for finder's keepers in the apocalypse was still in effect so the you snooze, you lose was also.
If anything, I could try and curry favors from "Jim", "Bradley", "Douglas", "Mitchell", or "Gregory" if I gave him his stuff back plus extra.