I've never really been big on smithing until now, since I've been playing my sword and board Nord (that was pretty poetic) quite a bit. However, looking at the Smithing skill tree, I saw something that puzzled me. If Daedric armor is supposedly better than Dragonplate armor, how come one can craft Daedric armor sooner than Dragon armor? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

It really doesn't matter much. By the time you can smith either, you've already probably gained 575 armor rating, which is the max you can have. Beyond that, it's just cosmetics.

Eh, I guess so. I just think it's pretty odd.

It's so you can go either left (mostly light armor) or right (all heavy armor) through the skill tree and still be able make Dragon Armor.

Ooooh, crap. Forgot that Dragonscale armor was light armor.

I think it's cause daedric is all heavy whereas dragon can be heavy or light. But they should have boosted the dragon armors a bit more. At least so dragonplate and dragonscale are better than daedric and glass(I think that was the last light armor material) respectively. But I think the strange stats are because of the rarity of the materials. By the time you get 100 smithing, you should have plenty dragon bones and scales, whereas ebony and daedric hearts need some searching for

Dragonscale starts out weaker to glass, but it can be improved more I think.

The perks are kinda messed up. If you take the left side as a light armor character, you get two perks that also let you craft heavy armor. Why would a light armor character want heavy armor? Who knows? Maybe so you can play dress-up with your followers? You'll get to craft Dragon armor but there are no dragon weapons and all the best weapons are over on the heavy side. Sadly, it actually makes more sense for a light armor character to take the heavy side of the tree. You still get Dragonscale but you also get to improve all the best weapons. As heavy armor character, Dragon is a wasted perk since Deadric is better... unless you just like the way it looks.

I quite like smithing but do have a few issues with it. Why does spaming our iron daggers make me a master of glass armour ?. It should make me good at producing iron daggers not other stuff. The way in which we improve weapons seems a bit odd to. You dont produce an amazing sword by grinding it should be in the construction method. Im no expert but its my understanding that to make a better than normal weapon you use more raw materials in the construction. You also use a more advanced construction method then you have an oversized weapon that you cut and grind down. Adding mettle to it at a grind wheel seems a bit odd.

It's better than it was after the patch. At least now making armor, like dwarven, gives a better boost to leveling up your skill than daggers all the way to 100. The greater the value of the item the more it raises your skill.

On the other stuff you mentioned I agree, but it is what it is. Don't think too much about it.

My elven light armour has higher rating than my dragon scale improved with same fortify enchanting gear & potion. Figure this out. Ofcourse elven light armour is not craftable.

Armor is messed up in Skyrim all-together.
The problem is the ability to max your armor cap with any armor, negating the importance of rare matierials.
Secondly is the availability of said "rare matierials"

Back in Morrowind the best armor was Daedric. There were 2 suits. In the entire game.
And one of them was worn by an essential quest NPC, the other was scattered to the far corners of the map.

Back in Morrowind you actually wanted to quest for powerful armor and weapons, now they are available at your local blacksmith.

I also do not agree with light armor being able to protect every bit as well as heavy does.

dragonscale is both light and heavy, but, daedric has a better ac than the dragon version.

I agree with this. Even at higher levels, heavy armor should protect more than light armor, otherwise, what's the point? We need balance. Each type of armor should have its ups and downs. Heavy armor protects more, but slows you down, whereas Light armor doesn't protect you nearly as much as heavy armor would, but lets you move much quicker, allowing you to escape enemy attacks instead of just taking them and absorbing the damage.

What you been smokin'? This is TES, as I've repeatedly been told by Bethesda apologists for some time now. They don't do balance. They don't bother with sensible gear or itemization models- it's all generic and blended together. They don't make hard levels or any challenging stuff for higher-level players. They've always let players get overpowered quickly and easily with no thought or care for how that sloppiness can ruin the gameplay for many. But, since they have never bothered to do any of these things (or a lot of other things that would make TES infinitely better), we should never expect any of those things, or ding them for not trying harder to do them right. They just make big, pretty, soulless gameworlds where you gotta gimp yourself and depend largely on your own imagination to make it interesting, because the normal RPG/action framework that people are used to from more complex and well-built games, is largely missing here.

But, it is a pretty game.

i must applaud this post of truth.

Thats what mods are for

Yeah. Unfortunate to only be able to get satisfaction that way, but thank goodness you can. Waiting on a great mod that reworks the whole game, improving on most of the things it lacks at this point. A few more months of people flogging the CK, and I'm sure one will be along.