I've groomed two higher level characters (fighter and a mage) from Master difficulty. Once they reached level 42+ their power and experience became evident in the sense that most enemies they faced had become "easy". I'm grooming another fighter (2h/light armour) who is currently at level 14. I encountered the "good death" orc and he schooled me twice because I erroneously hought I could go toe to toe with him. The third time I faced him after loading the save I did a lot of running around while my mage follower agroed him. Wasn't a fair death, but it was a good one nevertheless.

To me this makes sense. That orc had been fighting for decades where as I was still relatively a greenhorn. In my opinion, he should have been the better fighter that he was. This is typical of my experiences. I can now two-hit some bandits and draughs, but I mostly have to rely on tactical fighting to survive. Every dungeon is dangerous and demands my respect and care. Plus, I go through my potion and food inventory constantly. This also makes me use the cooking mechanics not only for role playing but also because it's practical.

I know that if I were to play the game on a lower difficulty, I'd be able to take down the orc by myself and I'd have a ridiculously burgeoning inventory full of unused potions. I'd also never make use of the cooking mechanic and probably not be thinking of tactics in fighting. I also know that once I've reached level 40 I will be able to manhandle most of my opponents. This once again makes sense to me. That's the point that I should have developed mastery of my core skillset. I know that there are some who consider this pwer-gaming, but why? This is pretty much as close as you can get to classical D&D on a video game. This is how it should be in my opinion.

The game was made and balanced for the default difficulty and that is how I play it.
Plenty of oppurtunities to develop your character in a way so you dont get powerful or rich before level 50 anyway.

I agree. But you can have a level 65 character,or higher, and still get owned. It depends on the build,health and many other things.

I saw master difficulty, as the opportunity to test my knowledge about the game and how well I can utilize what's available to me, as a player. I've had two playthroughs -as a warrior and as a mage.

While I had great fun in both runs and got that sense of accomplishment of being able to do it (that's what I was after anyway), I still believe Adept difficulty feels more "right".

Absolutely.
Personally I enjoy the journey more than the destination and I feel that vanilla Skyrim can do a poor job in providing such as journey.
Levelling is wholly too fast, same problem as in Fallout 3. Blink twice and youre high level.

The character development system however allows a good deal of freedom in how powerful you want your character to be compared to enemy combatants as you level.
I dont play as anything but a vampire necromage anymore and a large part of the reason for this is that getting my restoration to 70 first thing leaves my combat skills woefully underdeveloped compared to those of my enemies, which means an added amount of challenge.
On the one hand the necromage vampirism gives some powerful boosts to for instance illusion, on the other hand Im a proper glass cannon. One moment of carelessness, one hit by a boss NPC and Im dead.
Especially since I never put more than five level ups in health or stamina.

Conversely, if one were to build a character that specialised in a weapon and an armour skill from the get-go you would level about equally with the enemies, you would be far less vulnerable and achieve demi-godhood a good 20 levels sooner.

I feel that difficulty can be tweaked statisfactorily enough on the default difficulty to accomodate many playstyles and preferences and it doesnt lead to some of the problems that increased difficulty does.

master difficulty ? no it isn't more realistic , if i play in that mode and i m sure others too i tend to overspecialize in combat skills and tend to ignor everything else , so ending up with a pretty onesided character with massive amount of hitpoints good in a weapon but nothing else
like another poster mentioned the game is more balanced in its original difficulty mode

if you really looking for a more realistic combat and you are on a pc there is a pretty good mod out there that while keeping it balanced makes it more realistic in taking or giving damage and challeging