I have noticed when reading different post around this forum that a lot of you like to overpower your armor rating and weapon damage. I haven't been doing a lot of smithing and I just wonder if the smithing skill is something you NEED when leveling or does the game balance it by "giving" you better weapons and armor that match the creatures you meet? Or do you come to a point when you have found the best armor and you still level up and then more or less have to spend skill points on smithing?

I don't now if I make any sense, maybe someone understands?

You don't need smithing. It just makes things easier. No matter what weapon you find you can either improve it or make a better version then it is by smithing. So there is a lot to be gained from smithing, especially if you have it with enchanting.

Is it necessary? No, you can be perfectly fine playing with just the weapons and armor you find/buy in game...

Any weapon or armor you can smith can be found in the game from my understanding even dragon armor can be found. By overpowering smithing you can get it earlier. On my current character I am level 25 and I have only used smithing to make a set of leather armour and improve it and also improve my sky forge steel sword. Since making the leather armor I have found a full set of scale armor that I improved to fine quality. I have not put a single perk in smithing and I think the skill is still in the 20s (I am a Nord so it started at 20) so I have not improved it much. I have not found that fights are that much more difficult it just makes the one-handed perks I choose more important to maximize the damage I can do with the sword. This has been my most fun play through to date, by choosing only 6 skills to perk (with only one being a crafting skill). It has definately been more challenging and fun. So no I don't think smithing is a must have.... I have survived thus far on Adept difficulty with a good challenge, I die sometimes, but when I go back into the fight I got killed in I try a different strategy and usually I am able to succeed on the second attempt.