Socialist would be even better, except it just sounds horrible and even political loaded. By socialist I mean "one that interacts with others". A thief, assasin, rogue, and bard all belong under this umbrella term. Even a hunter if it's heavily based on stealth and barter (to get good prices for the prey). Also people seem to think of a "thief" only in the sense of a "petty thief". Try to think in broader terms (even if gameplay lacks)... Who was Kevin Mitnick? He was a hacker, and lets assume for the sake of argument that he "hacked as a thief". How did he do it? By incredible hacking skills? Nope, by social engineering/manipulation - *social*.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(security)

Isn't fraud also theft? Isn't that also based on heavy manipulation of the target? Again, *social* being the key word.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud
Note the rightmost paragraph and note how many requires "involving with the target".

Hustling and scamming also shines wrt "involving with the target", "being social".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick

Look at the skills we know are there / have been there: Sneak, Pickpocket, Back Stabbing (Daggerfall), Streetsmart, Speechcraft, Barter/Mercantile etc. They all fits nicely under "Social" if used as an umbrella term hosting also thievery, robbery, and burglary. Thief as a birthsign is ok in my book, but "Stealth" as a category just sounds *off*. then again, "Social" just sounds lame

Lockpicking fits as it is a skill required by many of the "Social" based classes. Alchemy too actually, since we're doing the most basic of alchemy. Not looking for a "where does alchemy go" fight, it's just how I look at things. Lockpicking would fit between The Thief and The Warrior, and Alchemy would fit between The Thief and The Mage. Then again, the categorization into these archclasses doesn't really matter at all anymore.

Politician

By that logic, Lawyer.

Having a few mansions in every town that are heavily patrolled by guards is a great idea. It would force you to really study the patrols and try to find multiple points of entry. Also, it'd be nice if climbing through a window were a viable option, like if you could go around and check windows to see if they were locked or not, but that's just mainly for regular houses and stuff, no way should a mansion that was heavily guarded ever just leave a window open.

Creating distractions would be really fun too, to take a little something from Assassin's Creed. Say if you wanted to hire a few beggars to harass the patrolling guards and run away to get them out of the way for a few minutes.

Or theiving could be better if things actually had a cost, I am pretty sure a pot sells fro more than 0, and that a Short Sword, is more than 3.

Realistic pricing could maybe make theiving a better ocupation.

First off, that made my night and I had strippers planned.

Now as to why stealth classes are deemed thieves mostly.
To my knowledge they're not, all use theft in various ways, some especially in Morrowind seemed to share the exact skill sets.
Mostly in different placements though.
The biggest reason I can say why it would seem this way is simply the "Thieves guild", it was a big portion of the last two games.
Many characters belonged to it, and jail and guards featured heavily in both games.
Also of all the classes thieves are less likely to actually use combat, hense stealth is a thieves best friend not an assassins.
As you can kill in many ways, but stealing generally requires trickery, subtlety and stealth.

Now for how much you can steal, many places were ripe in Oblivion.
Churches, manor houses, guild halls, castles.
You had armour, drinks, silverware, ingredients, alchemy apperatus, scrolls, gems, books, weapons, jewelry, clothes.
I.E replace magical or potion equipment with DVD's, TV's, CD's, and computer / consoles you have a typical set up of RL.

How about, The Unknown? Doesn't get more stealthy than that, no?

LOL!

MY DAY.

MADE.

Personally, my name for the stealthy classes is, "stealth".

I'm sigging the Steed birthsign bit. Thank you Alois for that. I think we should call it Ninjas, because that is probably the ONE thing that could be worse than calling them all thieves or all assassins.

I do agree with the whole "better bonuses for robbing people places" thing but the other stuff is "eh" to me

Nah, I think it'd be way too easy to make money, especially since it's too easy already.

Only if you rob stores, no other building has anything worth stealing.

haha! Or what if you're a man born under The Lady?