I'd originally created a high-elf with the image of something like Lord of the Rings - fast, strong, and deadly, plus a smattering of magic and magical items. I would love to be able to use summoned gear throughout the game, but at level 10 I've noticed my summoned weapon still does 22dmg. The weapons I'm finding are starting to get close to this sort of damage, if you factor-in magical damage, so I'm getting a bit worried. Are there better summoned swords at higher levels that scale with the weapons you find on your travels? Or, is my idea of a conjured-weapon elf just not gonna fly in the long-run?

I've heard it said that when they stop improving, they're about daedric + 20%.
That makes enchanted weapons significantly better at the end.
Conjured weapons are still really good for stealing Greater or lower souls, though.

I don't know about the other weapons, but part of my character's specialization is in Conjuration. I use the conjured sword as my "primary" and it not only levels my conjuration, but my one-handed skill as well. That said, placing points in the one-handed tree has benefited my use of my conjured sword. Throw on top of that the ability to add poison to my sword and if I wanted to do so, enchant my apparel with one-handed buffs, then I'd say they stay more than useful enough for how you would like to play.

I really wish they gave us a concrete number on what their damage rating is.

I've been playing a build where my weapon of choice is dual wielding bound swords, and I have all the conjuration perks for bound weapons (+50% dmg included) as well as 1h perks. I can't tell if I'm doing more dmg with them or the dwarven/orcish mace combo I have.

This is at lvl 20 by the way.

With a bound sword equipped, you can go into your inventory > weapons and look at the bottom of the screen for the dmg rating. Mine is at 22 while my best "real" sword is at 17. The number shows you what's equipped, and the number in parentheses is how much better/worse the weapon selected is.

Does "stop improving" infer that there's better conjured weapon spells as you get higher in rank? Or, do they start scaling with your level at some point? Or, do you just mean after you get all the 1h and Conjuration perks?

Ah, didn't think of this! Thank you.