Whatever Bethesda did about this someone is going to hate it and complain. They did it the way they thought would work best for the most players. If it doesn't suit your idea of what the game should do, write a mod, or another game, or a book or get a new hobby.

I get tired of the "My way or no way!" temper tantrums.

I like the route Bethesda took to blocking out the sun. Having it permanent I honestly can't say I would like. At least with this we have a choice to shoot an arrow into the sun everyday. If we want it always gone we can do that, if not than we don't. I seriously don't understand what the problem is.

If Bethesda went with permanently blocking out the sun people would be complaining about that to though. We have an option this way.

A permanent darkening of the sun would be great, if there were no freaking vampire raids from it! xD

I like the other idea. Darken the sun and it stays dark forever, then shoot a sunhollow arrow to reverse it. So rather than a timed shift, it's a toggle.

if you are a player of dawnguard it serves as a cool effect but nothin more

unless as a member of dawnguard you in the end had serana change you

But again, it has too many downsides as vampire attacks become more frequent xD

Without the sun crops and plants wouldn't grow, animals and people would starve and vampires would have to resort to feeding on draugr juice. Much better to be able to just knock it out temporarily when you want to act.

The sun in the Elder Scrolls is NOT our sun. It's a magical hole in outer space, what the people call oblivion, leading to aetherius. Besides, if darkening the sun made it lose its powers completely, the world would freeze and everyone would die the moment we darkened it. All it does is make that magic ball in the sky dark. It doesn't keep its magic from heating us or keeping the plants alive. Therefore, that argument really doesn't apply.

Even assuming that the sun is actually what the people of Nirn believe it is (our ancestors had their own ideas about our sun too), there is no indication that I'm aware of that plants aren't part of the food chain or that photosynthesis can be dispensed with.

Exactly. We don't know it doesn't either. All we know is that the sun does not work like our own in the real world, since if it did, nirn would freeze beyond repair every time we "blocked it out". My point is that because of this ambiguity, the argument that we can't CHOOSE to permnently block out the sun because plants would die doesn't really stand because bethesda easily could have explained it through the fact that their sun doesn't work like ours.

It was already explained somewhere although I don't think in skyrim, but in another game possibly or in a book in one of the games, that the sun had actually gone out for a full year.

The plants however continued to grow and life went on.

It seems the sun does not provide anything but light in this world.

Oh and the magic of the sun harms vampires

The book is in Skyrim and Oblivion and you get a copy of it in Skyrim by doing the "http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:A_Return_To_Your_Roots" quest. It's called http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_Nirnoot_Missive.
But yes, you are right. The sun has already disappeared and not much really happened overall.

Ah alright then, this guy has the info I was looking for ^
xD

Aside from Meridia saying otherwise in her Skyrim quest, consider the following:

1. "many scholars reject the proposal that the Sun's Death event of http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:First_Era#1E_668 catastrophically affected plant life"
Many. Not most. Many. And this tells us that there is or was a proposal that it did catastrophically affect plant life. The counter proposal could be supported by showing that there is no evidence of all the plants dying or mass famine occurring. The original proposal must have been based on something or it wouldn't have been made and refuted by anyone.

2. Red Mountain erupted around the time the Dwemer wiped themselves out and Azura turned Chimer grey. Some crazy [censored] was going on then. Oh. And four mortals tapped into the heart of Lorkhan and turned themselves into gods.
You've just given yourself godly powers which you intend rule over your people with. An ash cloud is going to wipe out plant life across Tamriel, starving everyone. What do you do?

Plants do require sunlight, but they were saved by a divine miracle. If you don't like "a wizard did it", tell it to the Tribunal.