I can't be the only one who thinks this isn't right:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v681/Reise/2011-11-25_00022.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v681/Reise/2011-11-24_00004.jpg

A very sharp, high res mineral deposit next to a very low res canis root. And notice the sharpness of the helm in the 2nd image compared to the ebony armor. All of this is on the highest setting with everything in the scene "loaded", too.

It seems like there was a lot of work put into much of the textures in the game, yet some of the most noticeable ones are left muddy looking for no reason at all. Tiny things like necklaces get very high resolution textures, while the shirts they sit next to look like they might be half that in quality. I'm hoping it's a bug similar to what Xbox 360 users were getting when installing the game to their hard drives. If not, well, maybe the coming mod tools can help.

Does anyone else get the same sort of thing?

I do as well, at it annoys the hell out of me. Not enough to ruin my enjoyment of the game by any means, but it's enough to rankle my OCD to the point where I'm eagerly awaiting the day when some of the high quality texture packs on the Nexus are completed.
As for why it's like that, I honestly have no idea. I would wager a guess and say that the textures simply aren't loading properly, but I've seen comparison images of the base textures files for some of the things in the game and there is definitely a noticeable lack of quality in some of them. Which is bewildering, since other textures in the game are so damn beautiful in comparison.

Really? That's strange.

I can't imagine why some things would be so drastically low res like that. Especially on items you can equip or see constantly on NPCs.

This happens to me too, it is annoying as hell

It's a bug. On PC textures don't always load at the set quality level, but instead LOW settings. Hopefully they will fix this in the upcoming patch. It is indeed annoying to be wandering through the wilderness, enjoying the incredible beauty of the world. Only to suddenly have some hidious low quality object in there...

Not exactly, most of the blurry textures are low-res. I checked them in the BSA. After all, Skyrim is a 6 gig game.

To be fair, most of the low texture stuff I've seen in the files is for small things - such as the eyes and smaller bits of foliage. Basically the stuff you can get away with not making absolutely stunning, since chances are it will turn out fine in the game regardless of what you do. They're still a problem, and the improvements are noticeable when modders go back and improve the quality (see the Better Eyes mods on the Nexus to see what I mean), but they aren't quite so jarring when they don't look absolutely perfect.

I've noticed that also. The other one I've noticed looks like the textures did not load at all. I can get to an area and all the trees are bright blue, then there was the guard who strolled past me in armor that looked like a blurry purple full length sweater.

yeah there is absolutely no consistency in the detail of the textures. Oblivion and morrowind had a much less noticable gap between the best and worst.

Yeah when you get that plain purple texture, just reload your save.

I beg to differ. Mainly because the objects that are low texture are different every time I open Skyrim. I've seen practically all objects that were at once point low quality at normal high quality too. It's not low texture size, it's an issue with loading them.

correct, not all the textures are low res.

This game will be over 10GB if they made everything high rez textures. Besides the mod community will take care of it eventually.