It's funny, Oblivion had the right mindset in some way. The enemies would level up with you so you wouldn't become a demigod, capable of killing everything with one hit. Oblivion just overdid it. I personally think it should be set right from the beginning, some enemies will be strong, some will be tough. But I also think that there should be a few people who will still be a challenge when you reach level 80+

I despised all of the scaling to level in oblivion, be it the monsters and bandits to the gear and deadric shrines available. If i can sneak my way to the bottom of a deadric shrine, grab the tanto out of a skull and teleport out at level 1 then i deserve that deadric tanto at level 1, why make me wait til im level 12. And the whole enemy's scaling thing i thought was a mistake, in morrowind i know i should venture too far north at low level, in oblivion i know a dude who didnt level because there was little point in it. sure your stats and hp goes up but so does your enemies'.

me too. i premake all of my characters in oblivion and fallout now simply cause levelling is kind of silly when you think about it. i give my characters specific strengths and weaknesses. and the only thing that changes is the gear and spells (in oblivions case) that i find. if i play a pure mage character in oblivion like i did awhile back i have a mod that severely gimps magic if i use armor so im forced to use jsut clothing and robes, and since my character was designed with low weapon skills he is forced to rely on magic for combat so i have no choice but to forgo armor. that is the gameplay i like. i HATE master of everything games.

i also might be in the minority here but i actually like having enemies that are near to impossible to kill or even unkillable and force you to run away. i made a personal mod awhile back that had invincible slow moving willow wisps that had a very small chance of showing up but when they did HOLY CRAP i was forced to run and it was actually alot of fun. games get boring when you become too powerful and godlike. i want to be scared of something once in a while.

The second part of your post is the complaint made about Morrowind that resulted in level-scaling that keeps the game challenging.

cept that they went overboard and instead made everything an epic battle. i dont mind feeling more powerful compared to enemies like bandits and mauraders and wildlife that chewed you up early one. i just think that if you encounter some 1000 year old lich king..........he should be able to wipe the floor with you in one on one combat. how come every TES game starts off with a prisoner who within the span of a few ingame months is all of a sudden superman compared to soldiers, mages and whatnot that have been practicing their craft for years if not decades. i hope they have companions in the nest TES game that would mitigate that if you could get some really old powerful wizard to help you with grampa lich king.

Personally I'd remove as much of "stop to think of how to level" and just have "level as you play", no stopping to crunch numbers, no "strategic leveling", just playing and getting better as you go.

you should try out nGCD........it does exactly that....it removes the vanilla points and instead makes your attributes depend on yoru skill. if you want to be a strong character then you have to work on blade, blunt, armorer and whatever else effected strength meanwhile someone who practiced magic all the time would be really smart and have high willpower but relatively weak.........go figure just like it woudl be in reality.

edit: changed i to you

What I'd still prevent though is FORCING you into one direction, even if you're a trained mage nothing stops you from picking up a sword and learning that now.
I made the suggestion that reaching level 100 is not mastery, that's just "you can do it good", and you can do a LOT "good", mastery is above that and really takes dedication.