The OP is corrrect, especially since Beth (as usual) claimed that we could play any character we want, any way we want. This is untrue, but that's par for the course.
For those who think that all Asian game characters (or other entertainment media) look flawless, young, etc, I'd suggest that you need to expand your experiences and learn how varied the artstyles are in Asian media.
Also, the idea of character art being "realistic" is pretty crazy since reality is subjective to each individual, not to mention we are talking about fictional settings, stories, etc. In the case of Skyrim, the environment art was evidently inspired by sci-fi/fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, one of the greats in the field and an artist who certainly did not bother to attempt to portray someone's idea of "realistic" (because that would be bound to fail for countless others, of course). The same applies for other greats in the field such as Boris Vallejo.
Just as an example of how unrealistic the characters are in Skyrim (vanilla Beth style, mind you) consider the way that males are depicted and compare this with the depiction of most females. Almost al males are depicted as stereotypically ripped, 6-pack abs, etc (and yes, relatively young, even if they are supposed to be much older). Meanwhile, the females are living just as harsh a life, and perhaps harsher in various areas, yet they are all depicted as weathered, to say the least.
If you watch the movie, "The 13th Warrior," you'll see a fairly wide variety of depictions of both males and females in Norse settings. Too bad Beth didn't do this, though.
Thankfully, we can hope that our East Asian fans and mod artists will step up to the plate as they have in prior Beth games. Obviously, the demand is there as mods from artists such as Ren are some of the most heavily downloaded mods for earlier TES games (as well as the ports to the FO games).
I know their schtick is "play how you want", but I don't think that was ever meant to be taken as completely literal. I can't play as a talking dog (without mods) either, but that doesn't mean they really lied, just that I'm being a little unrealistic. This is a western RPG, with a very western feel (the Nords, the accent, quite a bit of the architecture), and having anime characters in the vanilla would be odd to many people.
It's great that you like that art style, and that you are able to create characters like the one in your avatar via mods, but there has to be a line drawn in the vanilla development or it would never get made, and would end up being this weird Frankenstein with lots of different styles and no real cohesion.
And I don't really see your point about male and female characters - the world is harsh yes, and men do end up looking pretty weathered most of the time. They are all quite buff too - but then, most of them are either chopping wood, hunting for their food or fighting in a civil war, so that's not too surprising (although more buff women like this would be quite cool too, seeing as there are women who do these roles too - but then no doubt we'd have a forum complaining that the females have male-looking bodies).