As your character levels up, lets say to level 50, do you start to find dragon armor laying around or hidden in a dungeon? Does your smithing have to be high enough before you find armor pieces like that or will you be able to come across some of it every once in a while without touching the smithing perks? I noticed i never really find valuable armor like that unless i had a character who's smithing was maxed out.

It is possible to find the high end armors and weapons in dungeon chests and general loot at the higher character levels. I found a Daedric Shield (on a non-shield using character of course) in a standard draugr mumified corpse container in a random crypt so it does happen. Just don't count on it happening often as they are very rare drops in my experience.

Yeah, the first piece of Ebony armor I found was a shield on my dual wielding character, and my smithing skill was in the mid-twenties at the time. I have since found Ebony Boots of Frost Abatement (random), gauntlets, boots and another shield (all scripted).

im playing in master and i find much more better armors like deadric at level 50 than when i wan playing in adebt so i think its the difficulty or probably not i dont really know

by the time you start to find it you don't it or the gold you can sell it for.