I wouldn't say it is a complaint for me. Or something I am bothered by. It hasn't made the game feel soulless or broken or any of that.
It is a more "you know what would be cool?" kind of thing. I think it would be cool to see some flavorful things to spend your money at high levels (of wealth).
It is just a RP thing and an option thing for me. One of my character's concept is career bureaucrat of the Empire sent careening into adventure - think William Blake from Dead Man meets Don Quixote (needless to say a high speech craft was a must). Totally a true believer in the Empire, shook 'em up a bit when they nearly got their head cut off (I like to think the huge amount of time I spent just wandering in the early days is a sign their mind had snapped a little).
They are rather wealthy now and totally eccentric (you should see the bottle collection!). The kind of character who would find themselves rich, find no joy in just having bags of coins in a chest in a vault, but would want to enjoy it and share the wealth with others (a good, eccentric philanthropist) - and probably end up completely broke in a castle somewhere with an awesome bottle collection. Having money, having lots of money, and nothing to spend it on hasn't dented my enjoyment of playing this character in the least or still getting them out to go adventuring with. Just sometimes when I think about it I think "wouldn't it be cool to become a patron of the orphanage or rebuild that village with my money?"
There are so many complaints leveled at this game ...
The money topic seems to be the one of the day. All i have to say is this game is what YOU make it. For startes let me say i have over 250 hours in this game so i know what i'm talking about. 160 hours have been spent as a rich man and around 100 hours spent as a poor man. And let me tell you both are fun but i can get burned out by any style i play.
True, I have four characters I have played with a lot and not a single one is the same. There can be an organic feel to it. Funnily enough my poorest character is my Altmer true mage. I think it just goes to show that dedication to the noble art of magic and to exploring the mysteries of the universe leaves little time to accumulate such banol things as wealth. Well ok, that and magical paraphernalia can be expensive and collect loose change from dead bandits? Moi? I'll have you know the only bodies these hands touch are those in my magical lab.
For startes, my assassin/theif is sitting on 30 grand with a pimped up pad in winterhold. I'd have to go look to see how much i've spent or got all together but needless to say it a lot. THe only quest lines i've finished with him was DB and TG. I'm only halfway throught the civil war with him. I got 160 hours out of him then i put him to rest comfortable in his nice house until i figured out what to do with him next. Now, the way i got to be so rich with him was through stealing/looting and alchemeny. Now this is the part everyone runs to the forums and starts saying "anticlimatic" the game is or "i have too much money" or "the game is broken."
Yes, that attitude doesn't make sense to me either.
If you had the attention span to read all this heres a cookie and good hunting.
Good post, and you have a good attitude and are approaching it the right way I think.