Smithing had many flaws in skyrim, here is how i would have done it.
Here are the major points on which i would have based the smithing mechanics on:
* Making
* Upgrading
* Repairing
I would change the Smithing tree to this:
[IMG]http://i43.tinypic.com/15ewp4n.jpg[/IMG]
the major difference is that there is only two upgrades that can be done to weapons and armors, "superior" at level 25 and "legendary" at level 50. so there is no more drinking smithing potions or echanting armor to fortify smithing to try to exploit the armor or weapons to god mode.
Every armor or weapon can only be upgraded to superior and then legendary, but one major difference is that when you upgrade the armor or weapon the appearance also changes.
here are examples.
Armor:
[IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/34xl010.jpg[/IMG]
Weapon:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/546/skyrimironswords.jpg/
I would have also added repairing, instead of hammers you would need 1 ingot of whatever that item is made of, repairing would be good in that you would have something to spend your money on.
last thoughts:
How can you make a sword sharper than sharp or an armor any stronger by banging it with your hammer, this is called repairing not upgrading, in order to upgrade you need to change something in that armor or weapon, this two words should not be confused with one another.
note: I know i misspelled some words in the pictures, don't judge me too hard.

One of the images is broken. I like the concept, but I doubt they would bother making 3 models for every piece of armor. The concept itself can use some tweaking though.

But actually, you can make a sword sharper by hitting it with a hammer, but you use a grindstone for that.

what do you suggest to be tweaked? sorry about the last pic but tiny pic is acting strange

i fixed the pic with the swords.

hm i like your ideas

thanks, much appreciated

pretty good ideas, except I say good riddance to having to repair your weapons and armor and also we dont yet know if it will be possible to add new perks with the CK

i only suggested repairing to be back because i always found myself having too much money, it also could be done by making the armors and weapons last longer, so it wouldn't feel like too much useless work.

Wow, a positive and constructive suggestion for an improvement, with illustrations. Well done OP

I like your ideas, and they would work and be easy to implement. Personally, I like Iron Armour, I think it looks better than Ebony and Daedric, and I'd love the option to improve it visually as well as statistically.

Quite possibly the best improvement idea I've ever read.

i like the idea with different looks for armor improvement especially, and needing more than just metal to upgrade
however repairing i dont think is necessary

My smithing system would have worked as follows:

1. Scrap the current perks.
2. Questing to learn new armor/weapon types.
3. Value-based leveling for the smithing skill.

The old perks, nearly all of which exist to allow you to craft and better repair certain types of armor, would be removed. A 5-tier perk for improving weapons would be added, and a 5-tier perk for improving armor as well. These would replace the improvement bonus the existing perks grant. The perk which allows you to improve enchanted items would remain.

Some New Perk Ideas:
-A perk which allows you to melt down weapons and armor for ingots at a loss of 1 ingot per item melted (1-ingot items, like iron daggers, would not be meltable)
-A perk which causes the armor/weapons you craft yourself to emerge already improved (saving you 1 ingot per item).
-A perk that allows you to fuse a full set of any one type of armor into one solid peice. This fused full-body armor would cover head, body, hands and feet, for a sizeable boost to its armor rating and a reduction in weight, but a loss of potential enchantment slots (though the combined armor would be able to take an enchantment viable for any peice of armor)
-A perk that gives you a chance to disable a peice of an enemy's armor when you strike him, that peice of armor literally falling to the ground. I'm thinking a 10% chance, with that chance improving to a 30% chance on a sneak attack.
-An elemental infusion perk which allows you to add fire/frost/void salts while crafting armor or weapons to add a small amount of resistance or damage of the appropriate type to the item. This resistance/damage is considered a mundane property, and as such can be combined with other enchantments and does not require recharging. I'm thinking a 4% damage resistance added to armors (so 16% total from a full suit, 20% from a full suit+shield) and 5 damage added to weapons is appropriate.

Also, Instead of magically figuring out how to make new types of weapons and armor by taking perks, you need to seek out smiths willing to teach you. Some examples:
Fur: Anyone can craft fur armor: it's basically taking animal skins and strapping them to yourself. No teacher needed.
Hide and Iron: Taught by any smith during the existing "Need any help around the forge?" quest.
Leather and Steel: Taught by any smith as long as your smithing is at least level 20 and can craft hide and iron. This quest is similar to the first, where the smith gives you the materials and has you craft the items in question.
Scale and Plate: Taught by any smith so long as your smithing is at least level 50 and can craft leather and steel. The smith requires you to bring him 5 corundum ingots to complete the quest, and gives you the location of a good corundum mine (though he doesn't care if you actually get it from there or not)
Clothing: Taught by Taarie in Solitude for a fee of 200 gold. If you complete her "Fit for a Jarl" quest, her fee drops to 100. No smithing levels required. I would add cloth and dye as lootable/buyable items as well.
Basic Silver Rings and Necklaces: Taught by Endon in Markarth, though he charges you a fee of 500 gold. A speech check of 60 will bring the fee to 250. If you've completed the quest "A Silver Lining" for the thieves guild, he waives the fee entirely. You must have a smithing level of 25.
Basic Gold Rings and Necklaces: Taught by Fralia Gray-Mane in Whiterun at no charge, but you must first complete the "missing in action" quest. Smithing must be at level 35.
Advanced Jewelery Making: This allows you to make jeweled rings and necklaces, as well as circlets. Taught by Madesi in Riften at no charge, but you must first complete his "Ringmaker" quest. Smithing must be at level 45, and you must be able to make basic gold and silver necklaces.
Fletching: Teaches you to make longbows and hunting bows. Allows you to craft arrows, but only if you've learned to craft items of the corresponding type (iron, steel, dwarven, etc.) Taught by any fletcher, hunter, or archery trainer. 10 feathers+1 ingot=20 arrows of the corresponding type. No smithing level required.
For others: I'd send you into an orc stronghold to learn orcish smithing, send you into a dwemer ruin for dwarven, fight/become pals with a Thalmor guy for elven, and send you to Oblivion to learn about daedric armor. I suspect Esbern/Paarthurnax would send you on the quest to learn dragon smithing. Glass and ebony? Not sure yet on those two, maybe put them on the list of stuff any smith can teach you at a certain level.

For leveling, it would level faster the more expensive the items you were crafting were, with a scaling penalty for crafting an item you've crafted before... so the second Iron Dagger you make might net you 95% of the normal exp, the third 89%, the fourth 73%, then 65%, 54%, 44%, 33%, 21%, then 10% for every sucessive iron dagger after that. As noted above, I'd break jewlery up into 3 categories and require a higher level of smithing to learn to make it. Indirectly related to smithing, I'd also change "Transmute Mineral Ore" to "Transmute Iron to Silver" and add a new "Transmute Silver to Gold" spell which is rarer, higher level, and costs more mana.

Sure, overcomplication beyond any reason always helped.

Not only people can't skip the part where one has to actually do a lot of stuff to reach the maximum, they also want to ruin somebody else's fun. How selfish.

thank you everyone, i really appreciate your comments.

Dementor, you have some very interesting ideas, i like them.

Komodo, i understand that some people don't have the time to do some things so they prefer an easy way for doing things, but one of the big flaws that skyrim had for me was a lack of Immersion, and i just came up with some ideas that would have made the game more interesting for me.

From the OPs main post I agree when having upgraded a piece or armour or weapon I expected it to look different and was slightly disappointed when it wasn't. That sort of implementation would of set me apart from any other NPC wearing the same piece of kit. I could go into battle confident seeing that my armour was of better quality than theirs.

I love the idea of actually improving the look of the items along with the stats as well.

I am for any change to smithing that makes it more difficult. Along those lines, if they nerfed the xp given by relatively low items (crafting iron daggers from level 90-100 just seemed silly, but I did it anyways because it was efficient.) To improve at those high levels you should be crafting.. ya know... high level items... amiright?

I like it. Shame it'll never happen. Unless you can make a mod or get someone to help you make one.

Too much logic, sir. Too much.

i was thinking that higher level armors may already be upgraded to superior and will only be able to upgrade to legendary, i also thought that if people didn't want to level up their smithing at really high level in rare chest they may be able to find already upgraded armor. i know it probably will never happen but who said dreaming isn't free.

anything is better then how is currently stands..

OP: I don't understand what you're trying to fix with your smithing perk tree.

The problem I have with it is that it more or less branches off between light and heavy armor, but weapons are all mixed up.

Standard progressions
Weapons Iron - Steel - Orcish - Dwarven - Elven - Glass - Ebony - Daedric
Light A. Hide - Leather - Elven - Scaled - Glass - Dragonscale
Heavy A. Iron - Steel - Dwarven - Steelplate - Orcish - Ebony - Dragonplate - Daedric

Smithing tree(kinda)
........................./ Elven smithing--Advanced armors--Glass smithing--Dragon armor\
Steel smithing <---- Arcane smithing
...........................\ Dwarven smithing--Orcish smithing--Ebony smithing--Daedric smithing\

Because of the perk system to get the best from armor its good to choose one type and spend perks on that.

So if you choose heavy armor your in luck, your first smithing perk is for heavy armor and the other two perks after that on the heavy armor side are also what you need to improve early weapons. Since you get dwarven smithing before you get orcish chances are that your steel weapons are going to be stronger than your orcish weapons. Once you get orcish smithing you more than likely already have dwarven weapons that are better so just ignore orcish weapons. Steelplate is your next step in armor after dwarven however that's tied in with scaled armor in the light armor side, instead of wasting a point on Elven smithing to get Advanced armor just spend that point on orcish which is better anyway, so ignore Steelplate armor.

I have yet to play through with light armor but that seems even more problematic.
I guess I'm just ranting now but what I would like to see fixed with the smithing branch.

i guess, maybe if they would have made the tree to look more like a hammer and less like an anvil.