I kind of like how some editions of D&D handled this. Touch spells were easy to hit since all you wanted to do was touch the target all non dex based AC was irrelevant to the successful hit. But if you wanted to punch them with a touch spell scoring both punch damage and spell damage you had to contend with their full AC. Since elder scrolls moved away from skill rolls to determine a hit I doubt this could work here, but maybe something like that or as pointed out a perk for the destruction skill.

Hey there could be spells that make your fists dish out magical damage!

Example: Dragon Fist: 5 pts Fire Damage per strike / Spell duration 10 seconds.

.... Could make "Monk" type characters worthwhile!

What makes you think I'm not calm? I'm quite calm right now, actually, thanks. Hell, I'm in the middle of my weekend, how could I not be calm?

I don't see where anything I said was insulting, but w/e. Moving on. It has been confirmed that you need to equip a spell in an empty hand. Super. Guess what Hand-to-Hand is? An attack with your hands because they're empty (this isn't nuclear physics, by the way). "You should not be able to do everything at once" does not mean "you will only do one thing at a time ever and always". Again, not rocket science. Restrictions are good for games in my opinion too. They do present you with challenges to overcome, and it is fun... when you overcome them. That's why this exists as a perk. You can't punch with your hand on fire. That's pretty restrictive and challenging. You get the perk. Now you can. Challenge overcome. How fun.

Your conclusion that it would not be canon to do spellcasting with clenched fists is wrong. It's not an opinion. It's been done in the past and therefor, that's what canon is. Laws of the universe don't change, FYI. More revelations that don't relate to bio molecular chemistry. Hooray for us. I probably wouldn't bother to fuss about your comment if you were a little more thoughtful in your comment, a simple "I don't understand how this would work?!?!?!" would be more than enough =.= no need to get all high and mighty in a discussion like that.

there was a mod that did this for morrowind, so it can be done. but in reality it doesn't add much to attacks, but it does make hand to hand more interesting.

EDIT; maybe you can do this in skyrim, they're doing other things that augment how you attack with magic; traps, flamethrower type attacks.

Not sure if you guys talk about Skyrim, but I don't get the topic.

Not in Morrowind, but in Oblivion you can already cast spells and punch someone, you can cast spells no matter what you wear, you don't have to "equip" spell casting..