So having played Skyrim since the day Amazon got my pre-order into my eagerly waiting hands, I'm finally playing a vampire for the first time.

Is it just me, or is there absolutely no downside to being a blood-starved vampire? Sure, daylight hurts, but most of my daylight is merely travel time; I rarely complete an encounter in the wilderness (and my current thief character fast-travels whenever possible). And it doesn't hurt like it used to--no sun damage, just a stat hit that doesn't really matter, so long as you're not engaging in major outdoor battles. And most fights happen indoors (though I can imagine it would make the civil war more difficult).

And nobody cares that I'm a blood-starved vampire. As I understand it, this change came about with Dawnguard... why? I'm not even Volkihar; I just got scratched by a random vampire attack and failed to cure myself (partially intentionally).

Seriously, what's the deal with this vampire gameplay?

There's no deal, it's as good as it sounds, especially with a mage.

Now that I think about it, they also watered down the penalties for werewolves; they used to have to "prey on the innocent" back in Daggerfall or walk around with a grand total of four hitpoins (and I can't remember how it worked in Bloodmoon, though I think there were forced changes involved).

Werewolves are super-fun... but I'm not sure I like this change.

I couldn't tell you. I do know a lot of folks were upset when Dawnguard came out. Nerfing Stage 4 Vampirism was not a universally popular decision, to say the least.

They must have had a reason they felt Dawnguard would be less fun to play with standard vampire game play. What that reasons was, I couldn't begin to tell you.

This is why I use Better Vampires.

I reckon Beth downplayed the vampire side because it is downright evil and wrong to go around svcking blood from inocent folks. Thats why the dawnguard side is the best imo..