I'm just wondering, is there any point (poison spam beside) of using daggers as a sneaky thief before getting the backstab perk for daggers? I haven't attempted the math or anything just seems that swords, maces or axes tend to hit considerably harder in normal combat.

The point is not that using the dagger does more damage. It's the noise that you make. It's nearly impossible to sneak up on someone using one-handed two-handed weapons because they make noise. Daggers don't make any noise when sneaking.

Yeah no, you can buy Muffle in Whiterun. Muffle in 1 hand and your best weapon in the other means everyone dies.

granted its hard at the start but once your skill with sneaking improves you can get up behind anyone and everyone dragons and bosses included

I think my sneak skill is at 51 right now, starting to find it a lot easier to sneak around undetected. I love playing thief/assassin classes, I have in every mmo & rpg i've been able to. I'm especially fond of the development system in skyrim, being able to pick whatever you want at any time in the game is pretty great.

This is a fallacy. It's more dependent upon your Sneak level along with the types of enchantments you have on your armor/weapons. I have a Dunmer Assassin in full DB armor with muffled boots and a plus %25 sneak ability hood and necklace. I am also level 72 in Sneak with 8 perks including: Stealth (2), Muffled (1), Backstab (1), Deadly Aim (1), Light Foot (1), Silent Roll (1) and Silence (1). It is extremely (I say that with the utmost importance) rare that I am ever spotted. I use a dagger and a "special" daedric mace.

I play a sneaky thief/assassin as well. I am trying to find the best weapon combination.

I feel like I should have weapons for ranged combat (a bow), assassinations (a dagger), melee combat (???). I don't know what weapon is best for melee combat. It has to be good enough to fight dragons with...

I tried dual wielding swords, and hated it.

So do you guys think it would be better after you do your sneak attack to switch to say 2 swords or larger 1 handed weapon for the rest of the fight?