Some ways to do it, one is naturally to upgrade the armor to all housecarls and followers you use or have used. The elf in Riverwood you trained you for free only have an hunting bow, make something better for him as an thank.
Second level is to upgrade stuff before you sell it. you can upgrade even without perk and expensive stuff is pretty economic to upgrade.

As for using it in a role-playing way I only add smith perks when I have met actual smiths in game and worked for them...

i.e. I don't "learn" steel smithing until becoming a Companion and "learning for Eorland"...

I actually don't take more than steel and arcane smithing these days though....

I only smith weapons and armors for my use of the use of my pretties...plus the odd jeweled pendant here and there to make them a present, plus sharpening my weapons and buffing my armor; so far without exploiting this I have like 50+ and I am level 32, I can only imagine if I really focused on it how gamebreaking it must be

I think it's only really game breaking if you are using potions and enchantments to boost it even more. I don't really pay attention to it too much but I do have a couple of RP items when it comes to smithing. My characters will only wear armor they made themselves. In my mind it makes no sense that you could just take something off someone you just killed and have it fit. (much less not be full of holes) Plus any ore found is made into something to sell as a source of income if not used to sharpen weapons or upgrade armor.

Unless I just came out of a seriously filled mine it usually means maybe 4-5 swords made. I avoid daggers.. Too simplistic. I figure if you are going to forge.. forge swords. It uses more materials so you can't make as many. That could help avoid the feeling you are power leveling it.

I usually hit smithing level 50 around level 25 this way.

you can smith only your armor and weapons. if roleplaying, you can smith a new set each time you get the materials acting as if your current set was 'damaged.' or if you are an archer you can smith your own bows/arrows (with dawnguard), and not loot any arrows so that you are forced to use smithing for said purpose. if a mage smith your own jewelry and enchant it whenever you revisit town.
all above suggestions so you can avoid feeling like you are spam-levelling. and it works for me. once i get elven/glass smithing it levels so much faster with just smithing the arrows.

site wont let me edit, weird, only displays the save changes etc boxes. anywho if you dont want smithing to be overpowered avoid using the smithing enchantments/potions, if you still consider it overpowered avoid using the perks even. i personally rarely have issues with my level 50 argonian without improving any of my gear. (i play on adept, casual player here sorry.)

I'm playin on Adept too, but that's cause I'm Role-playing the crap out of my character (not using potions - only food that I hunted and cooked, no fast-travel, no looting, only wear armor that suits my character (light armor - nordic), two-handed, etc.)
Anyways, I was just looking for ways to fit Smithing in with this character without feeling like a spamming fool.
There are some pretty good suggestions here that I might try out.

Thanks Guys!

My first character I power leveled to 100 but still only used it to buff up my steel sword and leather TG armor. No enchantments. I prefer the more relaistic armors and buffing them is a good way to keep them and stay competitive. I do like the suggestions in this thread. For my wants I only need two perks (steel and arcane) and the latter comes at skill 60. I kind of wish that smiths would (for a hefty fee) do the improvements for you. This was you wouldn't have to do the smithing yourself for characters not so inclined.

I smith with all my characters (except my pure mage).
I follow the same guidelines as many of the posters here- upgrade my own low-level gear regularly, upgrade follower gear or items to be sold, make my own "favorite" weapon and upgrade the hell out of it. I do use smithing potions, however, so all my gear is usually pretty good without being overpowered.
2 self-imposed limitations: my smithing is never higher than my highest combat skill and I only take a perk after I've encountered that armor/weapon type in the "wild." I'm generally only tempted to grind (and usually train a few levels) between 50 and 60 so I can get arcane smithing (because the Savior hide has usually been in storage from about lvl 20 or so).
On my current character, I found dragonscale boots at level 35 (smithing 71), so I won't feel guilty about taking the perk later.
Having 3 characters over lvl 50, none has gotten smithing past 85.

to fix smithing all thats needs to happ is for mining and smelting to be part of the leveling process.

Smithing is fine. Just remove all the fort smithing enchantments and potions.

Enchantment is the broke skill.