You shouldn't have to use rogue skills to be a mage. Unless you want to. This is the crux of the matter. IF YOU WANT TO. The strength of TES was it's unprecedented flexibility (in pc games) in just WHO the player character is. You could play the game to the end with many, many, MANY types of characters. You could tailor them to your imagination. Create the whole backstory for yourself, and then play it.

My favorite type character, the concept I played in Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion, is this nerdy kid that has spent his whole life reading. Has no idea how to fight. Has no idea how to sneak. Has no idea how to pick locks. But he has the magic he learned from his books. So he doesn't HAVE to sneak, pick locks, fight or shoot an arrow.

Invisibility was a strength that balanced his lack of ability in sneaking. He didn't have to use stealth, he'd just turn invisible and no one could see him. This isn't "too easy"...this is a character design (my own) that was fun to play...if you didn't like it you didn't have to play it. You could still be just as good with stealth-god types. Or fighter types. Or just about anything.

Crippling invisibility and removing open lock spells and direct control spells, rendered my type of character, the character I had played in 3 previous games, unplayable. In the earlier games he could be just as good as the other types, without having those other types' skills. It let me play who I wanted to play. And it didn't force anyone else to play what I wanted to play. Now, to do the same things I could do in other games, I have to learn how to pick locks, and walk quietly.

It's not about hard or easy. Those notions never even occurred to me. It was because the game let me play who I wanted to play. Now the game is LESS flexible. Forcing me to use skills, I didn't have to use before. Skills that ruin my concept of the player character. It has made the game LESS flexible.

you don't have to pick locks or fight with a sword... i mean why not just do a summon and watch the fight go down? Being pure mage is fairly feasible, illusion works wonders at low levels as does destruction. So i'm not getting your problem really, mages don't pick locks...mages don't get the sometimes amazing things in locked chests

Being good at lockpicking is pretty much essential to the game. It was not in Oblivion or Morrowind.
At higher levels, being a pure mage in Skyrim on master is next to impossible. They wrecked magic for sure.

Self gimping should never be required in a game to have fun

:D