I'm sure we'll see a bit more variety this time around. Remember that we'll be able to customize armor as well, which could potentially mean hundreds of different options.

This. Maybe you could pick up pieces of fur/hide/scale from creatures you kill and turn them into an armour set? Obviously receiving a piece from every single creature killed would be too easy, so make it a random drop or something. This could also work well with the difficulty of killing creatures in the game (e.g. killing wolves would be alot easier than killing dragons so wolf fur armour logically would be less protective than dragon scale/hide, but mammoth fur would also be more protective than wolf fur because they're harder to kill etc etc)

Never played MW or DF have ya?
Anyway I'll consider not buying Skyrim if daedric armor isn't the best non-artifact armor... but ofcourse I'd only consider it... never do it...

And had you said that when Oblivion was coming out, you would have been wrong.

I'm in favor of two supreme top-tier armors, one heavy and one light. That said, the heavy should still have noticeably more defense in exchange for weight. If you make two top-tier heavy armors, one "good" and one "evil," then you'd need to make a third for morally-gray characters. Because, as many people on this forum point out, moral dichotomies are bland.

Whether or not those armors are daedric and glass, however, is another story. I think there ought to be several just-under-top-tier armors for each armor skill, and I think each of those should have its own pros and cons. But if there are multiple "best" armors, then finding them won't be as special. Remember that for every set of "best" armor, there are that many more "best" pieces of armor to find, and "best" armor becomes less rare. There could still only be one of each piece, but you'd still have two or three as many items that, when you find them, you say to yourself, "I can't go up from here."

So I'd prefer a system in which as armor gets better, it gets rarer and stays rarer. Iron should always be much more common than dwarven. I'd prefer several almost-godly armors in each armor skill, with three or four sets each. And I'd prefer one godly heavy and light armor, one set each. I'd prefer that one piece from each set be owned by an NPC, similar to Divayth Fyr in Morrowind. And most importantly, I'd prefer the remaining pieces to be placed in high level dungeons at random with every new game. Not even necessarily in boss chests. No more going to Dren Plantation from the get-go. You'd have to explore your heart out every time. And then, when you do find a piece, it means something to you.

At least, that's how I would do it.

Maximum protection is what is called rollplaying, not roleplaying.

I think its more than likely that skyrim will have tiered armor but i think they can balance it out better by adding much more unique artifact armor. This is another thing oblivion was lacking big-time. You don't feel as cool in your powerful daedric armor when you realize every marauder grunt has the same set. I'd like to see unique artifact armor full sets that are all very powerful but each offers unique pros/cons. At least at this point you'd have some level of choice and you wouldn't have your average bandit cramping your style .

Played Morrowind not Daggerfall but never finished Morrowind because the game bugged out and I had the choice of rebuying Morrowind or getting the new Oblivion. Can't say it was a hard choice.

Regardless, I REALLY want there to be dragon armour and I expect if they put it in (and I will be shocked if they don't) it will be the top or near top armour considering all the attention they are giving the dragons.
At first I ignored you for a complete moron when I saw you might not buy Skyrim over that then I read the next part ^^ You shouldn't even joke about things like that

Technically thats how it is supposed to work. Heavy armor has the highest damage ratings, highest encumberance which results in a fighter that takes blows while (ideally) dealing out comparable damage. Light armor has okay armor ratings, but much lower encumberance which should result in a character that moves around more and dodges blows rather than just absorbing them. And the unarmored fighter (such as the mage or monk) tries to avoid taking hits as much as possible while dealing out damage quicker and usually more powerfully.

Thing is though is that they never really fleshed the games out to the point that the differences were really in your face.

How is Gimping your characters armor "roleplay". would a ye old warrior chose to forgo a superior armored suit just cause it's not pretty enough? Hell I doubt there are many self respecting Heros who would rip the clothes of a fresh kill and pop them on himself.

True Roleplaying is for D&D