I've seen this line of thinking a lot, that the replay value of the game rests in the ability to play again with a slight shuffling of the initial numbers among the rather limited grouping of skills that our characters can use.

Really? I always replayed for a number of reasons. I wanted to focus on a different guild with a different questline. Wanted to try a game with a new overhaul or new set of player created quests. Or even because I had set the game aside for a time and coming back to it seemed to warrant a fresh start. Started my last Oblivion game because I wanted to try out the Vilja companion.

But I don't recall ever saying to myself, "Self, I'm tired of this here Battlemage. Think I want to try a Spellsword instead!"

I've always hated classes. I would always end up playing the first 3 hours of the game 4 of 5 times until I found the right fit.

I'm very happy to see classes go away and perks be implemented to add even more depth to your character customization. Leveling up in Fallout 3 was much more enjoyable and exciting than in any other Elder Scrolls game before it; mainly because the excitement of choosing another perk drastically outweighs the excitement of dealing out attribute points, and also because you got to decide what kind of character you wanted to play over time and weren't forced into anything from the initial get-go.

I guess people likes different things. I'm one of those who prefers the current approach. Partly because it sounds better, and partly because they dare to do something that haven't been done in ElderScrolls before(as far as I know).
It just might sound worse in theory than when you actually try it out yourself, or vice versa. I don't know, I'm looking forward to it, but I always preferred not picking skills and such and form my character and story through experience and choices, rather than on a chart. It's not to make things easier, it just adds more to the "roleplay-feel" to me, that I progress with time, depending on what I do.

They removed classes to prevent this from happening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubw5N8iVDHI

Actually I beg to differ. It is Elder Scrolls.............and it is Skyrim. It seems to say so right on the box

It was broken, though. Very, very broken. Constructed in such a way that it encouraged exploitation, with attributes that were nebulous and ludicrously interdependent, some with almost no visible applications to gameplay, others that literally did one thing, and a couple that applied to EVERYTHING. It allowed for characters to become good at everything, essentially turning out to be the same as every other character.

The new system is not hurting for complexity or depth, either. Its complexity is simply expressed in a different manner.

im not sure why but i have no idea whats going on here and its giving me a headache lol

If you can't handle the awesome, open, opportunity filled world there's a couple east steps you can take:

1. Write down, on a piece of paper, what kind of character you are making. Write down skills you want to use. Copy the skill list from a previous ES class if you need to.

2. Only use those skills or their equivalents in game. Make sure you keep that paper handy so you don't forget your characters skills.

4. Profit.

Why is this still an issue?

Except it was broken...

And no, not all characters are going to be the same just because there's no initial character generation...