I hope in Skyrim the developers take into account the setting when they place items. What I mean is this:

In Oblivion, Ayleid ruins contain all sorts of modern and out of place items. Like Septim gold pieces when the Septim empire did not exist at the same time of the Ayleids. Or Dwarven weapons despite the Dwemer and Ayleids having virtually having no contact, and the fact that Dwarven items are supposed to be rare.

This would be like if an archaeologist went into an Egyptian tomb and found American dollars and an ancient Chinese sword lying around.

To make the Ayleid ruins accurate you should be finding an Ayleid currency and only Elven weapons in the containers and on enemies.

Probably, the biggest culprit to this random item lists and level scaling. Also, there are times where the designer places something without thinking.

Now this will probably be very low on the developer’s list of things to do but it would be a nice touch to the game.

If anyone knows of a mod that does this to Oblivion or Morrowind please post a link here.

Not to mention all the goblins and bandits, those weren't Ayleid! Oh wait...maybe the goblins, bandits, and vampires brought some of that stuff in- I mean, it's not like these ruins were sealed up like Egyptian tombs, and when people live somewhere they do tend to bring things in. And even the apparently-empty ones could well have been used by bandits or such at some point, it's been a while since the Ayleids were around, after all.

Well, Morrowind pretty much had that. You'd find Dwemer coins in Dwemer ruins, and if you found modern stuff, then because bandits were residing in that area or something. Not to mention the rarity of really good items.

I do have some hope that they'll return to that more believable item placement.

Bandits move into ruins and bring stuff with them. Seems pretty logical to me.

That works for the vast majority of them, but there were a few supposedly sealed Ayleid ruins, like the on in the Mage Guild quest, that should not have had bandits bringing stuff into them.

That's what happens when the loot is random