So i have about 90 hours in on my character, the save file is about 8.7k in data and i've begun to notice that some armor pieces aren't rendering like boots and helmets. is this normal? any way to fix this?

Is this in one cell, or all cells?

Sometimes a cell will not render correctly, like you get a naked courier in Whiterun. If this is one cell, don't worry, it will render correctly the next time you go there.

what do you mean by cell?

Well, where your standing is a cell. Each interior is a cell, each city is one cell. In the wilderness, if you see a loading zone or the effect from a cell load, you are in a new cell.

ah ok, yeah it's in a whole bunch of cells, whiterun, wilderness all the holds pretty much and in the smiting screen.

Do you mean 8.7Mb for your saves? Mine are 11Mb after nearly 200 hours, but although I occasionally have the gfx taking a second to update, I've never had permanent gfx glitches.