I'll have to try that. I did Thieves' Guild and BD early in my game before I had any followers. Now, if I have to do something that they may not morally approve of, I ask them to wait outside.

I only recently spent the perk points in the Lockpicking tree because I wanted to have a non-breakable lockpick for jail-time.

Swords are good. I like axes are better. I even enjoyed combat with dragons with them until I walked out the gates of Riften into my first FROST DRAGON expecting to smash him a couple of times, absorb his soul and pick him clean. Then he said "I tire of you" or something similar, grabbed me in his jaws and shook me to death. Now I used ranged attacks with bow and arrows.

If only Skyrim has M&B type combat...

I love the combat, however there are plenty of opportunities for roleplay within the game that don't involve combat and also the combat is nowhere near as simplistic as some of you are making out.
It's what you make of what you're given. If you cannot make anything of it maybe you should try something else.
...just saying...

The dialogue system is just fluff with no real options or consequences.