This requires locational damage. I don't think we've heard anything about locational damage in Skyrim. (I suspect it won't be in, but :shrug:)
It would seem that the two things would go hand in hand, as the game would need to be able to detect where an attack hits and take this into account when calculating damage. While I suppose that doesn't mean location damage HAS to be in, the game just has to know the difference between an attack that hits your head or your torso, it's kind of a waste not to make each one do different damage.
But I think the bigger problem with this is that it would limit character customization, you're character would essentially be forced to wear a full suit of armor to make it worthwhile, because otherwise, you're leaving large part of you're character character vulnerable. In past games, my characters would often not wear helmets, because after I spend a long time creating the character I want to play, i don't want to render it all irrelevant by covering the character's face, but if wearing no helmet left my character's head vulnerable, that would become a terrible idea as a hit to the head would do the same damage as if I was not wearing any armor at all, in Morrowind and Oblivion, not wearing a helmet means sacrificing one enchantment slot and a bit of defense, but it's not like helmets contribute that much to the overall defense of a character anyway, now if the amout of damage done when a specific body part is hit is dependent on what armor you wear there, wearing no helmet basically translates to writing "Hit me here!" on you're head, if the game also has location damage, that's going to make you pretty vulnerable, assuming NPCs are smart enough to aim for vulnerable areas of the body. It could also make killing heavily armored enemies easy for the player if they happened to leave one part of their body unarmored, which was pretty common in past games.
As for individual armor pieces, I honestly would be fine with them being full suits - with helm and gauntlets optional. That way they don't have to worry about clipping issues and such, and they can focus on making each set look great. Plus I imagine a set of armor should protect better than random pieces as it's all designed to fit together. I really don't think having individual gauntlets or pauldrons is important at all.
Probably not an opinion that will be very well recieved here. Myself, I'd be pretty dissappointed if Bethesda did that to the Elder Scrolls.
also note- having a heavy gauntlet would realistically effect punching
That's actually something I've thought should be in the series, in part because it would add a way for unarmed characters to increase the effectiveness of their attacks beyond improving their skill. After all, characters who use weapons can get better weapons, characters who use magic can get better skills, it seems a little unfair that unarmed characters are left out, especially since in past games, hand to hand really wasn't able to do enough damage to properly compete with other combat skills. While the fatigue damage was useful, since it took so long to kill enemies it just didn't seem worth it.
Of course, there's also been speculation that unarmed combat will be removed, at least as a skill.