I recently discovered that, if you have one of the Bound weapons cast and just carry it around, it raises your Conjuration, which is awesome. I also learned that with a 30 in the Conjuration and few perks, you can fill soul gems using these bound weapons. I can never remember to cast soul trap whenever I have an empty soul gem, but since I'm close to finishing up azura's star, I'm thinking about abandoning my normal sword and using strictly the bound ones. What I want to know is how much damage a bound sword does and what perks help it be as good, if that's possible, as a normal one I'd forge?

I only use bound weapons for my mage. The perk Mystic Binding definitely helps.

A Bound Sword with the Mystic Binding Perk is an unsmithed, wieghtless Daedric sword. Perks in the Weapon Skill Tree make Bound Weapons more effective, Bows need Bows and Swords need One Handed.

But how viable are they on Master or Legendary, hmm?

About as viable as anything else that doesn't fall under the "makes Adept a snooze" description.

Who cares?

Bound weapons are great early game when you get the mystic bounding perk. But midgame they arent that great because you can smith and enchant even a lowly iron sword to be much better.

They look cool, but really, they arent all that mid to end game. The bow may be good if you have high level in archery AND alchemy for delivering poisons. But other than that, not that great as you progress.