Hello again,
Just a quick topic that caught my interest;
I have noticed that even though the player can walk around in full Dwarven or Ebony armour (for example), or mix and match between the armours found EVERYWHERE, not many NPCs chose to be clad in anything more than Iron, Steel or Hide/Studded.
The biggest two examples, as stated before, are Dwarven and Ebony. Surely if the player can find and smith these armor, surely NPCs can have access to it too?
Having this said, I have only encountered TWO NPC enemys with full Dwarven/Ebony armor, both alone, both in different saves, both simply entitled "Breton." (this also leads me to another question, but we'll touch on that another time)
I've only seen Glass on Thalmor agents, and Orcish on Orcs.
I can understand with Dragon/Daedric because of the sheer greatness of it.
So tell me; have you seen any npcs or enemys clad in high level armor?
Thanks

Honestly no. One of the most jarring things about Oblivion and the reason why it was my least favorite elders scrolls game was seeing bandits walking around in high end gear the second it was available to you. When you see those guys named for their race like "orc" "brenton" "argonian" are some of the ones ive seen I fell like those represent other high level adventurers and I don't have a problem with them wearing something expensive. If you remember morrowind there were litereally two guys rolling around in deadric armor and a small handful in ebony and I much prefer it that way because it means if your wearing that armor too it meant you were as epic as divith fyr or whatever. It kind of takes away from coolness factor if desperate raiders are rocking a full set of dragon scale armor.

I can imagine it's time and money. Most people in TES don't have the balls to go adventuring because the risk is too high and they'd rather make a living in a standard way. And Smithing along with making money is very long to your average citizen.
What you described happened in Oblivion however, and it wasn't that well thought out because if you were a bandit then you could sell your suit of armor and live your life with a decent wage. it also takes away the achievement factor from it. Morrowind was the best at this because like Cromwest said Daedric armor and such was only available to a select few.

I liked Morrowind a lot better one this one. They had plenty of characters in Dwemer, glass, some daedric and other cool looking armors. I would have loved to see more npc's dressed up with a combination of clothes and highlvl armor in Skyrim

I saw an orc once with ebony armor. Cant recall where.. Your best bet is smithing. I had full daedric and dragon armor. Also its a great way to earn $$.