As for the wolves the only problem I have is basing their attack damage and armor rating on a specific skill. I don't think that lycans or vamps should have a natural physical damage resistance when in beast form. As for weapon skill It is forcing you to choose a specific play style if you want to be a were-creature. I think it would work better if you could talk to Eorlund at the skyforge to make you armor for your lycan form. Light armor would give you a small armor boost and a small reduction to speed, while heavy would give you a large reduction to speed but high armor. Then players would be free to build there character however they wanted and armor perks such as fists of steel and conditioning would carry over into beast form.
the bears. It would be a shame if I had to choose based on my existing skillset rather than personal preference.
I understand where you two are coming from. It would be disappointing to find out your two-handed build had to settle for a werebear when you'd rather they be a werewolf. It was a suggestion for how to help differentiate them. I do however have a solution. If your werewolf/werebear strikes could level up their respected combat skill, and the damage they take could level up their armor skills, would that be something you'd be for? That way, you could still have your desired form and be have the two forms having different skill sets to help them feel different.
The armor and damage skills were the two things I was most iffy on how well they would work, because of the problems you bring up. I definitely feel they should have at least some armor rating, whether it's derived from heavy/light armor isn't the really important part to me.
Yes. This is another thing I would have liked to have seen included in Skyrim as well.
Glad that people have taken to this idea so far. Keep up the discussion so hopefully someone at Bethesda will see this and implement some or all of these mechanics.