i don't smith at all, just because I'm just not interested in it so my smithing skill is still very low. The only reason I would have to increase it (and the only reason I keep my dragon bones and scales) is because of the dragon crafting perk as well as the daedric crafting. I definitely want some dragon and daedric armor but if they're not impossible to find in quests or dungeons or off of enemies, then I 'm not going to bother getting it up to 100. Is it possible to acquire daedric and dragon armor without crafting? NO SPOILERS PLEASE

Yes. I'm finding daedric gear at level 39. From what others have said they are finding dragon armor in the 40+ range. Over level 50 apparently dragon armor is fairly common in the chests next to dragon walls.

Huh really? I'm lv 49 right now and I've yet to bump into those armor sets.

i got a rare drop dragon helm at 29. and am at 40 and have started to see daedric.

Yes, but they are incredibly rare. At level 56 on my current character I've seen one dragonbone helm and one daedric bow. Both were already enchanted though. Ebony stuff isn't far off in stats and it's quite common, so you don't necessarily need smithing perks if you don't want to take them. I haven't.

http://www.gamespot.com/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/videos/starting-block-the-elder-scrolls-v-skryim-daedric-artifacts-6346861

Daedric artifacts =/= daedric armor and weapons.

At what level you find them might depend on difficulty. A player on higher difficulty will probably run into them at a lower level.

As a side note, why is Dragon Bone Heavy Armor not as good as Deadric?

It is possible to find every armour and weapon type in game that can be made with crafting.
However anything above Elven (light) and Ebony (heavy) is rare / incredibly rare.

Glass is fairly common after lil 40

You can find both. I've seen a couple dragonplate helmets and daedric swords.

Level 44, and I haven't seen a single piece of Daedric gear except arrows.

Dragonscale helm with level 10.

Not impossible, but typically unlikely.

Yes. You have a couple of options. Both can be found through random loot and Daedric can be crafted through another method available to a master of conjuration.

http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Armor, Dragonplate should start showing up after level 40 and Daedric after level 48.

Never saw Dragon stuff, Daedric stuff I got at L42 was mainly weapons (2 daggers and a bow).

A fair note, if you don't improve your armor skills and your armor while leveling, things can become really hard if you don't use a shield. Especially dual wield characters will need better armor than their levels to keep up, on my new dual wield character I ended up having to craft Orchish armor, because I was taking way, way too much damage when there was more than 2 enemies.

Edit: UESP list is just a guideline, I found glass armors at L23, so its not a set in stone statistic, major part is luck.

You can find it, I have daedric gauntlets I found in a chest