Here is a very interesting feature of pick-pocketing which was absent in games past. When you pick someone's pocket, the amount of items you can find, and their values, is determined by your skill. Only an adept? Well then you wont find that awesome spell tome this Argonian has on him.

Here's the proof from the Quakecon demo itself:

This really justifies the skill for me. I'm very satisfied.

Yeah, interesting. And also very stupid.

>get better at picking pockets
>entire world becomes wealthier

EDIT: Or I'm interpreting the description incorrectly.

You can look at it like this. If you didn't find that nice item before, you just weren't skilled enough. It was there, though.

No. Someone just looking in a pocket won't see all the valuables. People tend to have their stuff in different places you know. They always got their valuables, you just don't see it all.

I know, I'll live I suppose. Actually, it isn't really made clear by the description, so I wonder which is true...

The items will be in the person's inventory, regardless of your skill, but your ability to detect the item depends on your skill

or

The items in the person's inventory depend on your skill.

Hopefully the former. Isn't that how it worked in previous games?

So does this mean that
-the higher your skill level, the better the equipment they will have, or
-the higher your skill level, the better the equipment you will be able to steal.

Great, i thought pickpocketing was kind a weird choose for the last skill, but i kinda like it now.

But does that mean ill need 40 pickpocketing to steal from guards?

The skill isn't even called pickpocketing, it's called pickpocket. Which could infer that the perks in the pickpocket tree help the character gain skills that you would associate with a pickpocket, things like sleight of hand and fast getaways...