Unique loot is fairly pointless when it doesn't scale to your level (or completely removes the option of improving it with your smithing skill). Even my old rusty steel sword will deliver more damage than random daedric weapons and weapons found in various locations.

It's just plain trolling when everyone does it.

You don't need more than one maxed out craft, namely blacksmithing, to blow the shorts off of every unique in the game. And it doesn't even have to be maxed, and you only need to have two or three moderate +smithing items you bought from a vendor, and a +50 smithing potion- a number of which I've looted or stolen just laying around in the gameworld. You don't even need to have done ANY enchanting or alchemy, at all. Armed just with those things, you can improve easily-made ebony and daedric weapons (and any armors you care to mess with) to be markedly superior to all unique weapons and armor. Of course, you can use these same methods to improve a number of the uniques to be almost as good, but none will be any better.

Unique items should be better than anything you can craft, period. What is the point in having them in the game, if they're not? They just turn into wall decorations or get put on the mantlepiece, because they are inferior to easily-crafted stuff. This trivializes them to the point of wondering why they even bothered adding them in, to be honest. Crafting should never be more than a means to *moderately* improve items, whether they be normal items, created items, uniques, or whatever. They should have made it so that no combination of crafting techniques could improve any item more than maybe 25 or 50% above it's base level, and unique items should start out at maybe 20% better than the best equivalent normal item in the game.

So, instead of crafting normal ebony or daedric weapons that can very easily be improved to be 200%, 500%, or thousands of % if you want to get whacky (but still well within the 'normal' capabilities built into the game, mind you), you would have reasonably improved weapons that would do quite well for most situations, until or unless you discovered one of the notably better uniques... which could also be improved moderately to maintain their proper damage lead over the pure crafted gear that's been upgraded. So, by doing this, you get rid of the crazy-stupid overpowered craft gear, you make uniques valuable and desireable again, as they should be... and you make game balance MUCH easier, since you maintain a logical and intelligent damage range un-F'ed-up by the current crafting mess.

Crafting, in any game, is secondary. It is a mini-game for occasional distraction from the usual dungeon diving and questing and whathaveyou. It was not intended, and should never be intended, to overshadow all other methods of item acquisition in a game, especially not to the point where it makes bothering to look for non-crafted gear a moot point and a waste of effort, and entirely removes any interest from the looting aspect.

And some gear is actually kind of boring. Take a look at all the Mage robes, for instance; in Oblivion and Morrowind you had Hort-Ledd's Robe, the Robe of the Conjurer, Aegis Robes, the King of Worms' Robe, the Deceiver's Finery, Robes of the Drake's Pride and so on.

In Skyrim? It's some variant of of or just generic robes (plus Thalmor robes, which are static). About the only unique one is the Archmage's robe and that's a poncho.

WTB more unique stuff for mages.

Since, as you admitted at the end of your first paragraph, you can improve the uniques to almost the same level as the best hand-crafts, then I don't see how you can also claim that said hand-crafts blow the shorts off of said uniques. That being that case, I would submit that the gap between them is not as large as its being made out to be.

To turn your second point around: if the stuff you can find is always markedly superior to the stuff you can craft, then why bother having the crafting skill(s) in the game? If both unique items and crafted items are to be present, then neither can be allowed to be significantly better than the other if you wish to avoid the risk of trivializing one of the two. That doesn't necessarily mean they have to be equal, though, as there is definitely a case for allowing the uniques a slight advantage due to their nature.

I'm all for reining in the excesses crafting is capable of, as it really does get insane, but at the same time I cannot support the reduction of crafting to a minor adjunct of looting. After all, if the skill is to exist it must also be relevant, and if all crafting is good for is improving loot then it will become entirely useless in short order, due to the total lack of big-ticket money sinks making improving items for sale pointless after about L15 or so.

I do agree that crafting should not overshadow looting, but at the same time looting should not be the be-all end-all of item acquisition, as there is a place for both in that department.

I hated that in Oblivion and Morrowind, to an extent, you had to ultimately upgrade to equipment you may not want. At least in skyrim i can play as a barbarian type character and my fur and nordic looking stuff remains useful all the way through. In Morrowind i had no choice but to ditch furs and opt for Glass
. All the other light armors were too weak. In the end its a tradeoff: Have various useful stuff early on that can last through the whole game such as in Skyrim and have the look and protection you want for your character, or have the 'progression' of finding unique and powerful items that may or may not suit your character the way it was in Morrowind. I personally like the Skyrim system because steel, steel plate and other humble items can offer good protection through the game

That's the real problem with crafting systems in general. I still don't think you should be able to craft Daedric.

Robe of the Apprentice and Robe of the Conjurer were just enchanted versions of the standard robes. The King of Worms' robe was essentially a Necromancer's robe. The Arch-Mage's robe wasn't even enchanted, or unique!

In Skyrim you don't have many unique robes either, but it's not like you're without choice. You have blue and black robes, college robes, Thalmor robes, the 'Novice Robes of Destruction' etc. robes, the Arch-Mage's robes, the Necromancer's Robe and the random 'robes of SCHOOL' that enemy mages sometimes wear, just to name a few.

in morrowind though their was the cuirass of the saviors hide and the boots of the apostle that had 266 armor ratings. the curaiss of the saviors hide was in some closet which made finding it very awesome, it was totally unexpected you dont get that same feeling in skyrim IMO

Yeah, but they are all fixed items. And few are even as good as what you can craft, most are worse. Their location and method of acquisition never changes, there is no 'hunt' for them, no uncertainty, no interest. Same item, same place, same quest, every time through. Woohoo. Now that's entertainment.