When you craft somthing for the first time near certain people, they comment on it.

I dont know the quotes exactly but they say different things depending on either your level or what you make. "thats a pretty good enchantment but yada yada/ thats some fine armor you;ve put together/not too shabby"

I always forget to test this, simply because when i make things its always when the respective vendor is around

My main issue is, i wish i could hear the other dialogue for the smiths. I've only ever heard what i assume is the novice and apprentice tier dialogue for most things, since they only say it once and they are always around.

One time i heard farengar get too excited over some insane enchantment i made "i have never seen such an amazing bla bla"

I guess my only option is to sneak around and only smith at night?

It's the blacksmiths in Riverwood and Whiterun that have the character smith a helmet and a dagger, and then explains how to improve them. I find it odd that both of them explain how to improve weapons and armor (to fine to flawless to exquisite to epic to legendary), but then not a single blacksmith in all of Skyrim does gear improvements. The ONLY smith in Skyrim that makes improved weapons and armor is YOU. That means from Day One, your character is "the best smith in all of Skyrim". That's because you could go buy any weapon or armor from Eorland Gray-Mane at the Skyforge and then make it better than what he produces by improving it. Why the others don't escapes all logic. If applying just one 7-gold iron ingot can double the sale price of a weapon, why wouldn't they do that? Further, drinking any potion of Blacksmithing affects ONLY improvements. It doesn't matter what a smith makes from scratch at the forge: Smithing 15 or Smithing 100, the quality of the manufactured item is identical. Since no other smiths in Skyrim do improvements, that means the ONLY person in all of Skyrim that can benefit from Blacksmithing potions is YOU. Likewise ALL necklaces, rings, garment, or glove/gauntlets of Smithing: the ONLY person that uses them is YOU.

Enchanting, otoh, there's some mages doing that. But if what is available is any kind of indicator, there's not much Enchanting going on overall.

You make a very good point with that blacksmith potion, never thought of that.