Alright, so you know how, in Oblivion, if you had an item hotkeyed, you would press a button and pull it from thin air? Well, maybe, instead of an item magically appearing, if you had it hotkeyed, it would show up somewhere on your body, and when you needed to use it, you would just grab it. For example, maybe one of your hotkeys is a longsword and a shortsword. Your shortsword is in a scabbard at the back of your hip, and your longsword is swinging in a sheath at your side. When you press the button for that hotkey, one of your hands pulls out your shortsword, and the other grabs your longsword.

For every hotkey you have, a slot is taken on your body. For instance, you could have a sheath for a dagger strapped to your ankle. You could have room for two one-handed weapons, each on your hip. Then, another slot for a shortsword on the back of your hip. At any given time, you could have one two-handed weapon (claymore, battle ax) on your back, along with a shield.

I know there are a ton of kinks to be worked out about this, but it's just an idea.