The NPCs have lots of great flavor animations, like leaning against the wall with their arms crossed, warming their hands around a fire in a storm, drinking from their mugs, swaying and clapping to music, playing instruments, and sitting on the ground like a Khajiit,...

Clipping issues aside, is this something that is feasible to mod into the game to allow your player character to do? I love switching to third person to see how alive my model looks in Skyrim, and would love to be able to do the things I see the NPCs doing like I listed above. I'm not sure if I've seen NPCs waving in greeting or bowing, that would be great as well.

Also something for absorbing dragon shouts would be great,...

I've never modded before in my life, but this is something that has me inspired to learn how.

It's possible. "Actors in charge" was a mod that did it in oblivion, and was onee of my must-haves. Once I found it, it never left my mod list.

Sure it's possible. But a lot of work and the Creation Kit is needed first. I plan to make such a mod for Skyrim.

Awesome, good to know people with experience are planning on doing something already.
If you don't mind answering a question, how did it work in the oblivion mod? Did you type a command in the console, or was it like a menu?

I very much notice how stoic, standstill and straightfaced my character is in Skyrm against the backdrop of lively animation in this game.

I would love my character to have voice in when talking with npcs, a moving mouth, some animations when standing still (pull out bread or water to consume, scratch head, shift weight from leg to leg, etc)

I also used Actors in Charge and a face animation mod in Oblivion, mostly to take fun screenshots. However next time around, it will be about time to add selectable voices for our characters, and give them some bit of body animation while standing still or listening to npcs stories or tasks.