We have alchemists that make potions for us...

Why not enchanters that can enchatn things for us....?

Or Smiths that will upgrade things for us...?

Reason? None, Bethesda just cut another corner in order to force the player to use more skills.

What really confuses me is why none of the bandits at places like Embershard Mine or Silent Moons Camp show any sign of upgrading their own gear. They have their own forge, yet no NPC ever upgrades equipment?

I like your idea but rather than doing a quest to allow a blacksmith to upgrade weapons and armour, they should be able to do this from the very start of the game but in order for them to upgrade things better (ie: fine to epic, epic to flawless, etc) you have to do favours for them such as delivering a letter. However, you must be a certain level in order to get a better improvement for a weapon or piece of armour so it's balanced.

I guess what happened is that when weapons and armor no longer wore out or down and there wasn't any need to have someone fix them for our characters, they got rid of the whole idea. I would love to have someone be able to do this so I didn't have to spend perks or gain experience for maintaining my character's equipment. As it is now, smithing isn't really an option.

It's really simple, there should just be an option to get smith's to upgrade items that you aren't skilled enough to upgrade. If you find dwarven armor but don't have any smithing perks, you should still be able to pay a really skilled smith to do it for you. As the equipment gets better, only the best smiths in Skyrim would be able to upgrade it. So if you wanted someone to upgrade your Daedric or Dragon armor for you, it would have to be the smith at Jorvaskrr, and he might make you do something for him in addition to the payment.

^{I like the idea, but maybe not to have to perform the quest, it should just be a service charge, the higher the improvement the more cost. However, the cost could be less if you are able to provide him the material, and maybe for some of the more rare elements, he could send you on a quest to get them before he could do the improvement. I would also like to be able to contact the smith to make aromor and weapons for me, not just have to buy what he has in stock. Also, as others have mentioned a enchanting and recharging service would also be a nice addition. There is a mage in the college that obviously does this for a charge, as there is a micelanious task to pick up an item another NPC wants encahnted. It would be cool if they also did this with the alchemy shops, pay to have them create some potions for you. I think this would help the role-playing charachters who avoid leveling certain skills, because their character should not be proficient in them.}

Do want.

Oh ho ho, Bethesda ought to see this one!

Though I personally think that weapons and armor should require nothing but gold to upgrade, enchant and recharge. It would be nice if the quality was influenced or determined by the artisan's own skill--that is, most smiths would be considered "common," Balimund in Riften (the expert Smithing trainer) would be expert-level, and Eorlund Gray-Mane (the master trainer) would be able to improve weapons and armor better than all other smiths. I would say that your relationship/level of friendship with the artisan should make a difference in pricing, but (1) some people can be befriended to a greater extent than others and (2) that would be a little game-breaking if you're the Harbinger of the Companions and therefore have both access to Eorlund and a good relationship with him (as well as game-breaking in any similar such scenario).

It's a brilliant idea because it give us non-artisans a way to have reliably upgradeable, enchanted and regularly-charged items without needing to invest in skills we don't want while keeping crafting skills powerful enough to be worth an investment; imagine being able to go to the jarl's wizard in any town for a recharge and therefore keep some nicely enchanted weapons without investing in Enchanting. While I'm well aware that those same wizards sell soul gems that can be used to recharge all the same, there are three advantages to that: firstly, court wizards do not always have the most desirable stock; secondly, role-players can avoid Enchanting skill increases; and thirdly, it would keep most everyone immersed better for recharge services to be provided as opposed to simply selling individual gallons of gas you need to put into your car one at a time. Oblivion had it (and last I checked, Oblivion's soul-trap/recharge system was liked enough by the devs to be kept), so why not?

Brilliant, OP, brilliant. I'm jelly that I didn't think of this myself.

Edit: In fact, because this was not implemented in the first place, most players that I know of invest in at least one crafting skill (not that they shouldn't, but does everyone always want to?). Virtually all warrior builds need Smithing, and not because they would benefit from it, but because lacking Smithing would actively harm the build (the warrior would be in consistently underpowered equipment). Same goes for Enchanting if you want any useful enchantment on a piece of equipment you'd actually use (can't tell you how many times I've found +30-40% One Handed damage on gauntlets a tier lower than my current armor set), especially because all enchantments ever (except for the obvious scripted/unique ones) are found by luck, whether in a chest, corpse or shop.

I like this, the first improvement after the quest is free. AND it only improves the weapons/armor you currently have as the quest involved you retriving a book of *BLANK* forging (blank is the [censored] you have equipped). You must do that every time you want a new type of [censored] improved. After the quests, you can pay them a lot of money (say 1000 or more gold) to improve your stuff through the levels of improvement.

To offset not having to level the skill, you must pay money and do quests so they will do it for you

I like this much.

To be able to upgrade things to a certain level without wasting perks?

@ OP: Eorlund should be able to improve everything to twice as good as their base level, with everyone falling beneath him