I always thought that the lack of unique beast-race footwear in Morrowind, and the reversion to human feet in Oblivion were just time-saving decisions made because the realistic solution (unique footwear meshes for the beast races) would take too long to implement.

Beast races should look like beasts, and surely the armorsmiths of each have had plenty of time to divine solutions to digitigrade foot armour. Hopefully some dev time is allocated to this

Argonians and Khajiit should go back to Morrowind-style, and not be able to wear shoes. Khajiit can run around on their paws and the Argonians can run around on their little lizardy feet. Although, they should be able to wear helmets.

And, while i'm here, make Khajiit Eye of Night either automatic or a toggle, not a spell.

I agree that they should be unique, as in more beast-like rather that being scaly or furry humanoids. However, they would need to have some kind of bonus that makes up for their inability to wear boots or full-faced helmets, or else many people would see them as being impractical to play as.

Hmm, well I would really love it if the old versions came back, just updated to be presentable. I would also like there to be certain advantages these races have over the others, not too big, but big enough to make up for no shoes or gauntlets. And as some of you have said, I would like it if the Khajiit eye of the night was auto or toggle, not a spell.

And this is why I suggested some relatively high level abilities in my original post. If Argonians and Khajiit's were races in the real world, don't you think that they would stand out not just in terms of how they look, but also in some of the stuff that they would be able to do that we could not? I think that, as long as the rest of the game were properly balanced, this would give us real incentive to play as the beast races.

Exactly! Having the beast race special abilities as automatic would feel so much more natural and believable.