I was just wondering how bound weapons scale vs smith/enchanted weapons. Is it worth it to invest in conjuration for bound weapons or do late game crafted weapons just blow them out of the water?

At low levels bound weapons are very good. But they really start to worsen at later levels when you would normally start to have very improved weapons (like legendary ebony +)

Conjuration level effects the damage out put

Associated skill level + perks effect damage out put.

So if you really liked the play style you can enchant your gear with + 1 hand OR + 2 hand or + archery damage to make up for the lack of damage that you would of had if you chose normal weapons.

equivalent to daedric unenchanted weapons

i think they're worth it for a conjure mage. u dont have to carry around weapons so u save the weight. all u'd really need to carry is staffs and thats it.

I think even if you are going to make a battle mage wielding a daedric weapon while wearing heavy armor it's still good. Early on it's sadly one of your more cost effective and damage wise effective spells and later you still have an inventory saving soul bind weapon that saves you an enchantment slot.

while u could technically be a mage in heavy armor, is that really what u see a mage doing? from an RP standpoint, a mage wears cloth...

Depends on what fantasy tropes you've seen. I made a battlemage character called Larquen Quen and if you know the name reference then you know the how the whole mage in heavy armor works for that.

it makes great for an assassin as you have weapons that you can pull out of thin air and leaves no trace, the lack of not being able to enchant and upgrade them via smithing is a good thing as well if you dont want to become a god by lvl 20 as a warrior on adept ( normal)

I believe Conjuration actually effect the time not the damage output, that is the associated skill, and its perks.

I use the bound bow as my mages secondary attack skill after conjuration.

Both Conjuration and appropriate weapon skill apparently affect it though I don't know how it's calculated.