I have only just noticed i can see my mouth. Oh. My. God.

If mounted combat was introduced it could easily be balanced (not too overpowered) and their are many ways to make this happen. One reason mounted combat should be included is because it is just simply and epicly cool to be able to do this and thats that. Another reason this would be balanced is because apparantly Skyrim will have many areas that are largely open-spaced so enemies that are native to those types of areas (mostly actors not many creatures) could have their own mounts and thus mounted combat between the PC and the enemy would become very possible. Another reason why mounted combat would work very well is because their would be a whole new skill which decides how good your character is at mounted combat, how this would work is the higher your "mounted combat" skill is the more unlikely it would be that your character is forced off their own horse as they charge into a enemy and the more unlikely it would be that any attack from an enemy that hits the PC would force them off their own mount. The mounted combat skill would also reduce the amount of health damage your mount (horse) takes during combat and would also allow your ranged attacks with the bow to be more accurate while mounted (using a bow while mounted reduces accuracy even further). Also it would NOT be possible to use two handed weapons while mounted but you would be able to use any bow. Finally mounted combat would be heavily balanced by 1 more factor which is the health of your mount and should the health of your mount fall to 0 then that mount (horse usually) would be killed and your character would tumble off and be on foot from then on until another mount is found (unless like actors the mount is essential and therefore cannot die and instead gets knocked out for a short time). This would also apply to your enemies so that you could instead attack their mount so that they tumble to the ground and are then on foot.