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Nine months to go. *sigh*

About http://i.imgur.com/rrYEf.jpg shot: anyone notice how at the end of the tunnel there's snow on the rocks, not to mention what looks like daylight, indicating that whatever is up ahead is open to the sky?

They should thought about already that in Oblivion, more enemies = harder fights. Far harder, with staggering and knockdown the danger increases exponentially.
Yes a bit unfair for fighters, mages has a benefit of area effect and mind control, sneaky characters can try to take them one by one ore evade them.
Still remember the extreme hard fights in the werewolf labyrinth in Bloodmoon, my most memorable fight to now. Read forum the next day: I used invisibility and walked trough it.

Here's some anolysis: There's only ever 2 light sources, similar colored objects like the grass blend together and almost everything in shadows looks flat because there's no indirect lighting almost at all, the sky is blown out because they're using much cheaper HDR on consoles, most of the textures are absolutely flat and those rapids look god awful. Bethesda artists, good job! You've proven some talent and imagination, despite the technical side the places look intriguing and neat. Howard, hire some new graphics programmers. Two guys did http://vimeo.com/20155857 entire reel on an integrated graphics board. That's not even a good integrated one, but one of the mediocre new Intel ones. and that's with crappy programmer art (as in, not artist art).

Has anyone pointed out that in image #8 there doesn't seem to be any indication that the city is a closed cell? It looks as if this is a town sorta like Water's Edge that blends with the worldspace. If so, it's much more elaborate and interesting than the little towns like that in Oblivion.

About http://i.imgur.com/rrYEf.jpg shot: anyone notice how at the end of the tunnel there's snow on the rocks, not to mention what looks like daylight, indicating that whatever is up ahead is open to the sky?

I'm not sure if anyone noticed this, but there appears to be a dead npc lying in front a chest to the right of the "cave entrance".

There may also be a nirnroot growing behind the chest. That could be the source of the green light.

http://i.imgur.com/mcWKG.jpg ~ Our friend the troll. It looks so much more intimidating than the trolls in Oblivion. I always found them to be rather cartoonish. Here we have an example of a spell in the left hand, and a sword in the right. Battlemages are going to have their hands full choosing between shields, swords, spells, and staves. But with the right combinations, their power will be devastating. Also note the fort/ruin in the background. There appears to be a rickety staircase on the left side, over a pretty sharp drop. On the right, there is a stone bridge for people to enter the fort on a higher level. If my eyes are seeing that correctly, it's a pretty cool idea for a dungeon exterior.

http://i.imgur.com/rrYEf.jpg ~ The "before" shot of a spell being cast in a cavern. I love the color of that orb of light that preempts the spell itself. Also check out the water here. It's a bit hard to tell from just looking at screen captures, but the effects in this shot are fantastic. The babbling brook running through the cavern over rocks, and the cascading waterfall on the right. Both look phenomenal. Also note that there is some sort of glowing light source in the alcove at the far end of the cavern next to a chest. It's unclear what that light source is, but I expect the chest contains some nice loot.

Did anybody mention the cave entrance yet? You can look outside!
That is, unless it's just a bigger cave outside with an unknown lightsource.

I hate to be the "whiner", but the hand looks wrong. You can't bend the first finger joint (distal interphalangeal joint) further than the second (proximal interphalangeal joint) - well some people can, but it's not functional in any way.
I hope they fix it before release, or a modder will be able to.

Good eye! Towns are not in their own cells this time right? It stands to reason most caves wouldn't be either. I mean the interior/exterior cell division that gamebryo forced upon the devs was a bit behind what most games can do loading cells on the fly to create a seamless world. Most of the time games avoid this on larger cells like cities by adding a "loading area" into the cell design (think of it like a diving chamber) where most of the exterior is not visible so you dont see any object popping and most of the interior is not visible so you dont see the other rooms of the cave/city unloading.

The location of these screens (http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/9756/duelhdp.jpg and http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/6031/skyrimoutdoorsscene.jpg) reminds me a lot of http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/4489/thevillageconceptart.jpg. I don't know for sure where this picture is from though, I think it's http://outlander.solsector.net/CONCEPT%20ART.htm for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlander_%28film%29?

I have no idea what you think you're saying about the hand in the pic. But I can position my hand exactly the same way quite easily, and it's very natural, actually. I think that is a proper body animation and certainly doesn't need to be fixed.