Even with all the problems Skyrim blows me away. Had some truly awesome fights, or rather me and my conjured minions have, so many decapitations and skewerings of Falmer and orcs, it was hard to take in, really bought a tear to my eye as the sheer beauty of barbaric, brutal melee combat unfurled before my eyes. Learnt a few things to, if you are tired of getting killed or being afraid to march anywhere you please, read these Survivalist guidelines:

(Playing on master difficulty, looking for a worthy opponent)
If you want to essentially triple your ability to fight, heres how; kill 2 Thalmor Justiciars, take their armour and weapons and reanimate them as dead thralls. Smith their armour as high as you can, I made enchantments to boost my smithing by 100% because my smith skill is only 36. Then enchant their armour as much as you can, I have on each of them +40% bow damage/+80% one handed damage/+25 light armour/+62 stamina/+124 health (+100 health from Conjuration perk)/+31%health regen/+37% frost resistance/+62% magicka regen, and some weapons to match, assortment of swords, axes and bows, enchanted to burn, freeze, paralyze etc. I want to find an item that boosts blocking to add that to their repetoire. Kill them both, put their armour back in their inventory along with swords, bow and shield, reanimate them again, fast travel somewhere and voila- they have adorned themselves in your highly improved armour and will use whatever weapons you gave them. Make sure to take anything from them you don't want them to use. Nothing stands for long against 2 of these dudes kitted out like that, all you need to do is master Enchanting and Conjuration which is relatively easy. Every so often when they die (can take a really long time so you might have to kill them yourself) take their weaponry, unless you have the soul siphon perk, and recharge it. Then reanimate them again and again. Nice! You can swap out items you want them to carry for you as well and they will even use potions. They are seriously tough, far superior to any of the living companions you can use, mostly I can just enjoy the show as they beat everything to a pulp and chop everyones head off! So cool. So if you are having trouble staying alive in Skyrim, dead thralls is the way to go.