Okay, the whole point of the character I've been playing has been as follows: use smithing and enchanting to make great gear, give it to a powerful follower, kill him, then have an undead thrall with great gear. Repeat for a second thrall.

Well, so after many hours of gameplay (I don't use purchased iron to level up smithing, and I fill probably 50% of my own soul gems) I've got smithing, conjuration, and enchanting at 100, and I'm ready. I find Stenvar, disable then enable him to make sure he's at my level, hire him, removeallitems to make sure he can't use his damn hunting bow, and deck him out in the finest daedric armor a heartless merc could ask for. Then I take him out into the woods and kill him (hard, even though he has no weapons at this point). Place his new Daedric Greatsword and Daedric Bow on his corpse, and cast Undead Thrall. Stenvar rises, no longer Stenvar, but an animated suit of demonic armor with an undead human core! Muhuhuahaha! Perfect!

Or it was perfect, right up until I fast travel or try to enter one of the major cities. When Stenvar shows up, he's wearing his default steel armor. He's using the appropriate weapons (and doesn't revert to his hunting bow, thank the worm god) but my zombie warrior somehow managed to change clothes while I wasn't looking.

So, after hours of playing this character, the central premise is badly damaged. Instead of three awesome Daedric golems following me around (two Thralls and a living merc) I just get two guys moaning. Any idea how I can fix this problem? I'm not above using the console to fix bugs (as I did to make followers level appropriately and to make sure they stop using their ****ing hunting bow when I've given them a two-element enchanted daedric bow instead) but I'm not sure if there's anything to be done.

You need to kill your thrall, take their default gear and improve then enchant it and return it to him. They wear their default stuff only, do you have to work on it.

Shouldn't have a hard time changing weapons tho.

Thee only way to get someone to wear different gear is to change their default armor in the npc editor.

Link?

Thralls only wear the stuff the died in, or someething they could have worn if randomly spawned. You can take there stuff smith it, enchanted etc. But you can't give them something entirely new.

Okay, downloaded the NPC editor and assigned Stenvar and Mjoll the ArmorDaedricFull gear sets as their favored setup, so when they die I can take the armor they are already wearing, improve and enchant it, then return it to them, and my super-scary daedric kill-squad is nearly complete. Thanks for the tip on that editor! Now I just need to complete the Companions quest to get my third and final minion (Vilkas or his brother, I forget which I decided on) and then I can actually start doing quests with my strike-force. Muhuhuahaha!

I suggest you not gearing them all in daedric or you may die of boredom eventually after 30min of gameplay.

I'm pretty sure he is trying to become amazingly overpowered on purpose. Hey Op just a tip, give your followers atronach staves. They will use them and it will double the size of your army.

They just look so coooooool.

I've put over 400 hours into this game man. I'm not worried about getting my money's worth at this point.