Is this true? I just started playing and see that there is no damage indicator on my equipment? If so... that is AWESOME. I hated in Oblivion that my dark brotherhood armor would go down to 0 with 3 hits.

There is no degredation like in OB, with smithing you can improve upon your weapons and add to your armor. So you no longer have to carry 5 weapons with you into a dungeon.

in other words.. streamlining.

Its not like you even need to upgrade weapons. I am one shotting bandits and wolfes with my base level iron longsword.

If you're one-shotting bandits with an Iron Longsword you're playing on Easy. I'm playing on Master and with my Dwemer Greatsword I can one-shot bandits though not all of the time.