After playing mage for a while... I'm starting to dislike it. I constantly get one shotted and the only way I can kill tougher enemies is to stagger-lock them. My light armor is 32-ish and my one handed in the mid 40s (from conjured weapons).

So my question is... is it too late to effectively switch over to a more melee based character?

It's possible if you do one of the following:

1. Turn down the difficulty
2. Grind skills

At around level 15, I tried to go from 2H (level 53) + HA to 1H (level ~28) + Shield (level 28) + HA. I had to turn it down the difficulty from Master to Adept. Granted, I don't have a companion following me, so I might have been able to do expert if I had picked one up.