I didn't want to make this a poll, as I'm more interested in the actual replies than finding out the amounts across the board. Which game had the clothing, armor, etc. that you liked? Just talking vanilla games or expansions/DLCs, since mods can be anything and everything. For my own opinion I'll just talk about the ones I got to play for more than a few hours.

My favorite was armor was Morrowind's. Each set or even piece of armor seemed to have a lot more detail to it than in other games, in a sense. Several armor sets had scarves, lower level armors had signs of wear and tear that I really liked, and none of them stuck out to the degree that you felt out of place among the NPCs. On the other side, if you wanted to be a shining knight or warrior, you could, but it wasn't overdone. Oblivion's armor was well done, but it all felt too clean. I did not like that I wore the same set of armor into battle for months and even the cloth surcoat looked fresh. However, there was no asymmetry or rugged appearance that you could get if that was what you wanted. Skyrim's armor, while some of it was pretty nice (looking at you, ebony armor), was on the other end of that spectrum for me. There were precious few sets, whether you liked them or not, that weren't barbarian-ified and super rugged. All of the armor sets seemed to be made in the Nordic style (except for Orcish, Daedric, and Bonemold, of course), and this sort of lack of variety in style didn't sit well with me. Dawnguard and Dragonborn did a good job helping that, but overall I preferred Morrowind's.

As far as clothing goes, I'm a fan of Oblivion's, actually. The clothes had a good amount of variety and the outfits (shirt+pants combination) were very nice. Being the first game in the series that had visible rings and amulets, it also got me paying attention to the look of whatever I wore rather than just the enchantment. Skyrim kept up with the detail in clothing too, but I just wish they had a little more variety, again. Morrowind's had variety and detail, but I didn't particularly like anything in them. If I wore clothing rather than armor, it was often just the default common shirt and pants you start out with. Bloodmoon and Tribunal's clothing was much better, in my opinion.

So what do you guys and gals all think? Agree, disagree, just wear things for their stats?

Daggerfall had a huge amount of great clothing, but it was just 2D images so it's kinda dull compared to the newer games.

And out of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, my favorite armor in the TES games so far is the Dreugh Cuirass with the blue sash in Morrowind. Don't care much for the Dreugh Helm or the Dreugh Shield though, they are rather ugly That said, very few of my character worn stuff because of the stats, most of them wear relatively plain stuff like leather armors cause that's what I'm most fond of. I never cared much for the heavy armors in any game.

I was a little weirded out about the idea of wearing dreugh armor while encountering dreughs in the water, so I always shied away from that cuirass . I was more partial to the netch leather variations when I wore light armor. Not a fan of chitin's color but the idea of it was pretty interesting.

I liked the clothing in Oblivion, but Morrowind's armors I liked more. I am just like Freddo, I like the looks more than whatever stat it is.

My characters often wear things that suit their characteristic needs. I personally really disliked most of the designs of armor in Oblivion cause it looked funny. I liked some lower grade sets, like steel, iron, guard sets, chainmail and leather, for example. Dwarven wasn't bad either, ebony was probably my favourite fancy one, while some like glass or elven just looked funny with some pieces (I'm especially looking at you, bugs life elven boots). Daedric armor was just mundane evil-looking armor with no creative design in it, imo. Normal clothes were pretty cool, and I liked it how girls got more formal apparel, that is dresses, acompanied nicely by now visible jewelry.

Morrowind had some great overall designs (although rather common for many armor sets) but they were sadly all so low poly that it's hard to compare to new games. My favourite shirt was probably http://images.uesp.net/5/56/MW-icon-clothing-Common_Shirt_03_b.png shirt (the iirc reddish one, with scarf and some jewelry on it, for people for who this icon is too small), while my favourite armor are both versions of netch leather cuirasses (though I never understood why they called every chest armor cuirass but ok). Iron helm was my all time favourite helmet, but I also really loved Morag Tong one. Generally, I loved how apparel system worked in Morrowind and I wish they left that kind of variety in newer games.

Daggerfall had some nice looking garbs too, but as said by Freddo, it's just basically pictures, so it's hard to compare.

Skyrim imo had some great designs, and I personally didn't mind it that most of the lower ranked ones were of nordic design. I also loved higher tier armors like Orcish and Ebony (although ebony weapons are just silly) as well as Elven. Daedric and glass sets are somewhat missed designs imo, with daedric being worse by quite a bit. Clothing is also really nice, and I'm a giant fan of college robes. But as you say, there is a huge lack of commoner's apparel.

So I can't really rank them well, but I'd say Morrowind and Skyrim are somewhere on the same spot for me, with Oblivion being on a place bellow them.