Yeah, the light-medium, medium-light etc. stuff is perhaps excessive, but as far as I'm concerned, the light/heavy system in oblivion did not effectively fill the role that medium armor would. Yes, the light/heavy system is more simple, but Morrowind had medium armor, and we can all agree plenty of people were perfectly satisfied with that system and had no trouble using it. I think the immersion/realism/choice factor of adding in medium armor outweighs the slight jump in complexity that also comes with adding it.
We can all agree some people were satisfied with it? That just strikes me as a weird statement. We can all agree plenty of people were satisfied with Oblivion's system, and I condemn them both as simple and inadequate. What do you get if you're wearing leather boots with your steel armor? Full sneak benefits, and you gain light armor skill with your heavy armor skill. How well are your feet learning the skill of wearing leather boots? Real good skill there. In fact you can gain full skill in heavy armor by wearing only steel gloves all game. Then your daedric armor is weightless.
Armor skills are great. Or if you actually doubt their greatness, you could try a system like I suggested earlier where stats are applied by the piece.