A few months ago devs said they were removing leg armor so they could add more armor combinations in the game. But just like Morrowind -> Oblivion the customization seems to be less then half of what it was before. Despite fan-boys saying blacksmiths would be able to custom the look from adding more shoulder plates here or taking away the odd piece away there, to me there seems to be less armor over all then fallout 3... and less then a tenth of the options in Morrowind for sure.
So why the switch? I mean the game, (on less then beast computers) takes ten minutes to load (I don't have this problem but console gamers are sure [censored]ing about it) I mean great game sure sure... but it seems to more shooter/hack and slash then it's predecessors. In the end it really does not matter for us pc users, already have a ton of mods installed on it. It just seems like the entire "WERE REMOVING ARMOR CUSTOMIZATION SO YOU CAN GET MORE ARMOR!!" was a bit of a bs lie... Just saying.
There's quite a lot more armor looks than in Oblivion and Morrowind isn't it? Past the obvious sets you can smith yourself, you got the hidden craft Ancient Nord set. There's multiple look variants on Fur and Hide.
Then the faction based armor sets with the Imperial (4 types, 5 if you count Tullius) and Stormcloack sets. Forsworn set and Ancient God set. The Falmer armor set (yes, you can wear that too). The thief guild got 3 sets for you, plain thief guild set, nightingale set and the sleeveless variant you can find in one quest. Dark Brotherhood got multiple options as well to be found.