I think you should be able to have some of these skills to make the game more that just another fighting rpg game. I was thinking like :

Mining ores: Coal, iron, copper, crystals, clay (for crafting only), Gold, silver, Titanium (make this the hardest to mine), harvest
acids from killed creatures that shot acid at you (Hydralisk lol).

Explenations: Coal simply to heat the other ores to make the bars. The rest of the metals, once turned into bars, you should be
able to either take it to a smith crafter like in Shivering Isles, or make it your self using only the kilms (the big oven thing)
in the smithing places. For example like in Runescape.

Crafting: Make use of the yarns, needles, dyes, cow pelts, other animal pelts for armor and deco, Buy moldings to make pottery and such.

Explenations: You should be able to make your own clothing, leather armor, and pottery for you home or somthing (make money).

Fishing: Travel to a spot to go fishing with other NPCs and train on that level. Then sell the fish or cook and eat it! (maybe one of the Cities need food)

Guilds/Factions: Do not remove the idea of being in a guild like my personal favorite, the Dark Brotherhood! Continue adding more simple missions after you become guildmaster! Sneaking and stalking people around the City is extremely fun to play! Shivering Isles let you do it and it is fun to go with a pack and kill things.
Make other NPCs fight each other somtimes, this make the game a bit realistic so it looks like a history between them.

Creatures: Able to fight and train instead of finding one single wolf and 5 minutes into walking find an ogre that ownd you. Make like packs of small creatures and some fight eachother i dunnno. Perhaps a volcanic area where baby dragons spawn and train with when a character is high in level.
Also giant monsters which scale matters how strong or weak they are.

Many pets: Dog; cat; lion; spiders, mystical creatures; raise a dragon! Make them grow over time and if the pet is killed, you can revie them with special potions that would be difficutl to make if you liked them.

I dunno how many people like the idea of getting NPCs when you became the guild master and go around and fight. Or just walk around. You should be able to have like up to 10 guild members to follow you and stuff! Imagine like in Shivering Isles how you got the two powefull escorts to follow you, that is really fun. More, more, more! lol

No on all your crafting points. This is not Runescape. Maybe give us the ability to smith weapons, but only if we could just buy the metal bars and actually customize our weapon somewhat as if we made it.

Having animals hunt each other would be nice.

"Perhaps a volcanic area where baby dragons spawn and train with when a character is high in level."

Once again, this is not Runescape. This would go against the geological features of Skyrim, the lore, and it would be kind of stupid, in my opinion. Dragons are supposed to be epic creatures that ravage towns, not just some training dummies for the character to fight.

Pets? Once again, this is not Runescape. Raising dragons would, once again, be against the lore and be just plain stupid, in my opinion. Maybe we could be able to purchase a dog or something to just sit around in our house, though.

Mining = Confirmed, as with cooking and some farming. We also can make out own armor. Dark Brotherhood also confirmed. As for the rest of this, I stopped playing Runescape 7 years ago. If I wanted to play it again, my account is still accessible.

Link? I haven't heard about any of that being confirmed.

All from the GI article, the first thing to have info on Skyrim. I could mail you my copy if you gave me money for shipping lol.