I have always thought it was weird when you were holding a weapon in your hand and it just disappeared after you equipped something new, and seeing it too much would break the immersion for me. However, I understand that it was just practical programming and could be manually avoided by sheathing you weapon first. Spells were the exception since there was new visual ques when you switched between them.

Now in Skyrim spells will now be equipped to the hands and with 85 to chose from, we will likely be changing spells a lot. Not a problem at all for a mage, but perhaps inconvenient for a spell-warrior who wants to keep physical weapons at the ready. I think this will multiply the number of times we see weapons disappearing out of our hands after we have flipped through a few menus. The quick menu is a practical solution for quick swapping equipment, but it doesn't seem very intuitive to me because it will only help emphasize the fact that you weapons are disappearing from your hand and magically finding their way into your bag. I would rather avoid this visual blemish when possible.

So the question I pose is this: Imagine that the Elder Scolls world is the real world and you are holding a weapon and shield or two weapons or even a two-handed weapon, how would you go about casting a spell?
Would a targeted or touch spell be obstructed by the weapons in your hand? Would you be able to just point a finger or two to direct the spell around the weapon? Would you have to drop the weapon on the ground to free your hand? What about self-targeting spells?

I think one possibility for a skilled mage would be to use telekinesis to cause their weapon to float, freeing their hand up for a spell. It would make an interesting perk at least, allowing for a weapon and spell to be used in the same hand. I also think that self-targeting spells would allow you to channel magika through your body and therefore would not be obstructed by a weapon. For this reason I think that these support spells should be equipped to a separate slot, allowing all character to use and switch them without disrupting their equipment.

Thoughts? Other ideas?

I like that telekin,esis idea. That would be interesting.

Maybe we could have a sort of "Active weapon" effect; Where you would have say, a sword in your left hand and a spell in your right, and when you switched out your sword for another spell, your sword could be sheathed and visually remain there until you decide to use it instead of that spell in your left hand.

I like this idea; it's very practical. In Oblivion I think they had something partially similar when you had a shield equipped. When you also equipped a two-handed weapon it would stay equipped but not be used, and I think they could do something similar with weapons and spells with the addition of the weapon remaining visually in your hand. Perhaps they could even allow you to equip each hand with a weapon/object and a spell, and then have a quick-swap button to switch between the two w/o having your weapon thrown back into your inventory.

Assuming telekinesis needs a free hand to cast, why can't you just use that hand to cast the spell you want?