How do I go about doing this as efficiently as possible? I just don't see where in the world I would put my perks into.

These are some of the perks I've figured out so far:

Combat

Heavy Armor
Juggernaut - 1/5 (Required for FoS)
Fists of Steel - 1/1

Light Armor

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Stealth

Sneak
Stealth - 5/5
Muffled Movement - 1/1
Light Foot - 1/1
Silent Roll - 1/1
Silence - 1/1
Shadow Warrior - 1/1

Pickpocket
Light Fingers - 1/5
Night Thief - 1/1
Extra Pockets - 1/1
Poisoned - 1/1

Lockpicking

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Magic

Alteration
Novice Alteration - 1/1
Apprentice Alteration - 1/1
Magic Resistance - 3/3

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Non-Combat

Enchanting

Alchemy

Smithing

Speech


Those are some useful perks I can see being good for utility/general effectiveness and whatnot, but beyond that I really don't know where I would want my perks to go into. This leads me to ask a few questions.

1) Does having only heavy armor on the hands and nowhere else effect how easily detected you are when sneaking?

2) Fists of Steel, do they add the FULL armor from your hand equipment, or do they only add the BASE armor from your hand equipment as damage? (ie Would using the smithing/alchemy/enchanting loop to get high armor rating on Daedric Gauntlets work, or would it have the same effect has having un-upgraded Daedric Gauntlets?

3) http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1279078-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-3/page__view__findpost__p__19338884 (scroll down) says max unarmed damage is 61. I was wondering, to get the Fortify Unarmed +14, is there any requirement for alchemy, or can that much be gained simply with the Enchanting?

4) Add any perks/advice you have on me making this better, if you can!

Chances are for RP purposes, I'm just going to use Heavy Armor on the hands only, and everywhere else I will just use whatever looks best on a Khajiit to make me look Monk/Pugilist-y. So chances are I'll end up mix/matching a bunch of gear, or ending up completely naked even.

I think getting fists of steel is pretty much just as effective as getting the gloves of the pugilist early on. What I made is a kahjit character to do the thieves guild with, and I fight with bow + unarmed. The unarmed damage is very high early on. Especially once you get the gloves of the pugilist (which you automatically get when you start the thieves guild). But of course no matter what you do unarmed damage doesn't scale well in higher levels.

Unarmed combat will serve you well at least up until level 10, and I think it's doable at higher levels too. Just make sure you first get some damage in with bow + poison, and then finish it off with unarmed combat.

No it not gloves of the pugilist +10 fort unarmed damaged. Whereas Fists of Steel = Heavy Armor gauntlets do their armor rating in extra damage when punching.

For the best Punching guy ever you want to go full heavy armour as Fists of Steel only works with heavy armoured gloves.

In fact a guy who full heavy armour and has Daedric Gauntlets will do more damage per attack than any other weapon (outside of possibly a duel wield specced warrior but this depends on duel wield perks not working with unarmed and I haven't tested this, if they do work then unarmed is untouchable in pure damage), 18+150%(all armour boosting perks taken) = 45 base damage before smithing (and you can use a shield or 2 hands).
For the OP he loses out on the extra 50% from a match heavy set perks meaning that his hands will only do 36 damage still higher than any other one handers though.
A 1 handed Daedric sword does 14 base damage and you got +100%, = 28 damage and ~33.6 with +20% crit perk factored in (if crits =2x damage).
A mace again don't come anywhere close at 16 base damage = 32 with the +100% damage perks.

As for smithing and skill rating level I believe that's the boost is the same for both armour and weapons

Given the insane damage you can do I would say that unarmed will slaughter everything just fine, your just missing out on the bonus power attack powers (double damage when sprinting and 25% on standing).
And as a Khajiit you do get the extra 15 damage for being unarmed

I believe the consensus is, unfortunately; 1H perks do not apply to unarmed.

Not sure how you can do it most efficiently, but I recomend too take 5/5 Juggernaut since it will enhance your damage. Also having all the defense boosting perks in HA is smart, even if they require you too wear all body-pieces.

I've wanted to do this as well but thought of having a shield in my left hand and a fist in the other cause I haven't seen much advantage in "dual-wielding" fists.
And of course, it would look really cool. Slam 'em with one hand and punch 'em with the other.

Fists of Steel is WAAAAAY more effective than the gloves of the pugilist, as you can easily get gauntlets early on with armour ratings of 30. That beats the measly 10points added by the former.

If you're going unarmed though, I'd pretty much recommend levelling heavy armour in general, you'll need it.

^ Yeah 1 Handed perks are unlikely to work I said that the only ones I was unsure on was Duel wield ones as it don't say two one handers.
5/5 Juggernaut is needed, without this you might as well forget using fists I missed that he said 1/5 Juggernaut.

You can still use the gloves. Disenchant them and apply the effect to some heavy armour gauntlets.
Go smithing as well and improve the gauntlets to legendary, just imagine the power!

Well why not pick up gloves of the puglist, disenchant them, enchant your daedric gloves with fortify unarmed, problem solved.
Still won't be as much as some smithed deadric sword but pretty nice.

Does Unarmed still hurt fatigue?

I also think that fist and shield would probably work better and be more fun to play.

Well, according to the link in OP's post, unarmed damage with fists of steel is calculated through BASE ARMOUR RATING of the gauntlets. So that would mean perks like juggernaut don't affect the offensive power of fists of steel. Which means (again according to the link in the OP's post) that daedric gauntlets give the highest damage bonus with 18 points, just a measly 8 more than the gloves of the pugilist. Of course you can disenchant the gloves of the pugilist and enchant the daedric gloves for even more offensive power, but that would be something for lategame, and you only need 2 perks to get the maximum effect.

It has to be said that the fists of steel deal more damage than the pugilist gloves even with measly steel gauntlets, but you do need two perks for that. So early on I'd go gloves of the pugilist and later on I'd disenchant them, get fists of steel and make daedric guantlets with +unarmed damage.

Yeah, that was my main concern, I wasn't sure if I should bother enhancing the AR on the gauntlets because I believe it only calculates the base armor rating. I was more looking for confirmation on that. Thanks for all the input, regardless!