I apologize for asking so many questions, but with the game just over a week away, I'm trying to plan ahead for my character. I understand that lockpicking mechanics are like Fallout 3 now, but will you still be able to attempt to pick any lock regardless of difficulty, like in Oblivion, or will it also borrow from Fallout 3 and not even let you attempt to lockpick if your skill is too low?

I'm pretty sure you can attempt to pick any lock no matter your skill

You can attempt to open a lock of any level. Key word is attempt.

You can attempt any lock but Master level locks will be impossibly hard without save-scumming.

I hope they didn't make it too difficult. I doubt that even most thief characters will invest perks into lockpicking, as perks are just too rare and I doubt most builds will find room for an extra eleven perks. I could get lockpicking perks if I didn't have to invest in combat perks, but I doubt that even the most stealthy rogue-assassin would be able to avoid combat all of the time. Especially when it comes to the dragons.

I watched a guy try to pick a master lock at level 20 skill for 15 minutes unsuccessfully today.

If you mean he had a lockpicking level of 20, I understand. But if you get your lockpicking skill up higher, it should be reasonably possible even without the perks. Or at least I hope so. I believe doors re-lock in this game, judging from the wax key perk, so it's probably possible to just keep running around towns, picking doors, in order to grind your skills up. Sadly, a part of me thinks I'm probably going to do some power leveling shortly after I get the game. Not a lot, but I need to be able to sneak and pick locks with some degree of competency.

You won't get a lock open above your skill level.

You sure about that? That's going against what has already been said. In Oblivion, you could pick higher locks. It was just damn hard and you broke your lockpick easily.

In contrast to what I said earlier, said gentleman also picked a different Master lock in two tries by being dead-on purely through luck.