Just wondering, before I start again.

What changed?

Smithing now gains XP depending on the value and of the piece made.....I think...right?

You could always Ohgma Infinum glitch yourself, like a champ of course.

indeed instead of 400+ iron daggers you need ALOT more
even iron swords is pretty low return in xp on the other hand elven or dwarven items give you a great return and even steel swords give you a decent return
so start raiding those dwemer ruins

It's much easier. Instead of smithing 50000 useless iron daggers, you only need to smith a piece of armor for lots of skill increases. Makes sense because making armor compared to a dagger is a lot harder.

I knew I was right to drop even ebony stuff in order to carry all that heavy Dwemer metal. 25 wieght, 25 value? No, worth it's weight in gold, figuratively.

I wonder what will end up being the best item to smith, xp to cost/materials, will be. I tried iron daggers after the patch and they don't give much, which makes sense.

Easy, make higher value item now more easy than iron dagger... especially if you have mod and able to craft extraordinary value item.

I haven't noticed, but then I've only got my smithing up to 35 as I've been playing an Imperial Footsoldier in my current game and I thought that he wouldn't be a mastersmith unless he decides to become a Blacksmith

I would think that the change just makes it more interesting - there's a reason now to smith other things, not just Iron daggers and Leather helmets. Of course, you'd still smith lots of Iron/Leather stuff, just because those materials are crazy common. No reason not to, even if they give small returns. It's still a gain.

This. I smith armor more often anyway. The only time I made a dagger (other than the smithing "tutorial") was when I needed a Daedric one for my assassin.

Well I like the change. Though now it makes another good reason for crafting jewelry. Which is fine as I always have gems and silver/gold stockpiled in my house.

And that's the thing. Generally you would need a high smithing skill to craft expensive armor to get good smithing experience. But ANYBODY, with the right materials, can craft the most expensive jewelry thus giving huge Smithing experience.

I have found that upgrading armor, which I always did with any armor loot I found just to improve Smithing and give it a better price, does little to nothing for your Smithing skill now. I still do it, but it's about pointless.

Overall I think the change was very good and helps overall. But due to jewelry can still be abused some.

What items take the most materials to make and what items cost the most when completed? Those two factors are what you need to look at. Pick the item that has the least materials for the highest cost end result.

I noticed that at higher levels you make a lot of daggers to go up. Maybe 30 or 40 daggers around level 80. Creating expensive things adds a lot more experience. Making improvements that add a lot of value is also good. One thing I would do is to collect glass armor from dead Thalmors and improve them while wearing my smithing enchanted outfit. You make a lot more money when selling to stores, and you only need to do it 3 or 4 times to gain a level at high level.

You get experience by creating and adding value, so you hardly get any experience improving an Epic armor to Legendary. You get a lot more experience from improving unimproved armor to Legendary.

I'd say jewelry. So start transmuting the hell out of your iron ore.

I read somewhere that someone said Silver Necklaces are the thing to make now. Made even better if you mine your own silver. Course the transmuting spell nearly makes mining silver or gold pointless.