Unfortunately that seems to be true in Skyrim, although strangely not so in Cyrodiil or Morrowind.

My Nord started off as a swordsman,but I wanted him to be more then just a brute force barbarian so I started using magick more and now he can hold his own in both.

Think your on to something here, question is though is the the same for npc's or just for the player to make every class equal? probaly not much difrence in damage if you max out destruction or double handed.

Bet your caricter would kick more ass if you focus more on one thing!

The way it SHOULD work Is that it`s much easier to swing and kill quickly with a sword, ergo, many more people are warrior types or archers and mages should have a slightly harder time learning spells and getting good with them.

But the draw for spell casters is that when they DO get good they can kill 50 heavily armoured armed men with one spell cast. And he`ll probably have a `two-way` shield up as well to protect against sudden attack from behind or archers.

It should balance out if done right.

I don`t think it`s so well done in Skyrim.

Why can not everybody make computer programs, fix their own car or plumbing? Because it take long time to get good and you have other who can do it.
You can get potions and scrolls who is ready to use magic and don't require skills. The jarls have mages who helps them and you can probably get him to help you if you pay.