I perfer a long sword

Depends on the character. Mage - shortsword or dagger, Warrior - whatever looks most like the Elven shortsword from Oblivion, or a scimitar, something nice and curved for my Redguard, Rogue - shortsword and dagger, it's what dual wielding was invented for.

Longsword, because they make me look more important. That goes with all RPs and character builds, sense I won't likely ever be using two-handed. Even my stealth characters use a long sword. I don't like to risk getting detected by sneaking too close with a dagger, and I'm not a fan of middle ground so the short sword is out of the question. My mages will be going longsword+staff once they run out of magicka.

Hmm, i liked daggers in oblivion because i could enchant them with some form of damage thingy (drain health, shock damage etc) and with the dagger's fast speed its usually "oh there's a monster; proceed to rush over and slicesliceslice monster's dead "