It seems that even when I reanimate a mage they seem to prefer their fists over magic, and warriors have to run all the way back to their weapons unless I carry them into combat for them or plant them on their bodies. Help?

When you kill the foes, they would drop their currently equipped weapons and shields on the ground.

But their reanimated corpses are not intelligent enough to take the items back, so I help them with this regards:

Whenever I kill the foes that I want to reanimate later, I open their inventory and take their weapon and shield and then give them back again, and they will equip them when reanimated.

I might even carry more powerful weapons around just to place in the fallen foes' inventory before reanimating, so whenever I Find a spare powerful weapon in a dungeon raid, I take it along and give it to my reanimated minions to make them more effective, and then take it again from their ashes to give it to another victim, and so on...

Yeah like I said, I plant weapons on them as well. I haven't started carrying weapons specifically for them yet though. My main concern is wizards. They pop up and start whaling away on people because they seem to forget their magic in undeath.

They are zombies, usually with difficultly talking and your surpised they can't shoot lighting from thier hands? thier undead not liches.

I presume it makes sense, it just makes reanimated mages useless. They're not the best boxers around.

i just want a zombie dragon after that im golden

Between the 100 hp dark soul perk and its mere appearance it would be pretty terrifying.