the weak point for me is that it feels cramped. Hence why I am really hyped for the Witcher 3, they say it will be like 3-5 times bigger than Skyrim. I mean have you seen the footage about Novigrad? Now THAT feels like a town!
I really hope the game will keep its promises.
With Skyrim I had always the feeling like I am not navigating trough a whole province but the backyard of a province.
It doesn't help that Bethesda is always trying to make this epic story, inside an epic setting, with epic people doing epic things. And then you get into a battle with 5 men on your side and 4 men on the enemy side. And they call it a civil war ... If you can't do massive battles, because of engine limitations, then find a way around it. Let the troops stay outside, getting ready for a long siege or what ever and give the player the task to sneak into the palace trough the sewers, or trough the enemy camp at night or something. But no, you have to conquer all those towns. With 5 Min.
This was better with Morrowind. It was not trying to force some epicness on you just for epicness.
And sadly there is only very little that mods can do here.
I tried the so called Civil War Overhaul mod. But it felt always like that. A mod. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not to mention I believe that it broke my game, as I had crashs over crashes thx to the mod (at least I think it might have been one of the reasons). I remember that someone compared the mod to a situation where you try to fix a broken glass or bottle or something. You can get all the pieces together, use some nice glue and all that, but it will never be like before, and over time it will be leaking trough those tiny holes. And that is true with many of the Overhaul mods. The best thing you can do with Skyrim really is to add some visual fluff, textures, new weapons and armor and maybe things like Dragon Riding.
But anything outside of that which is touching on the story and the quests in the game? One of the best stuff that I saw was the Interesting NPC mod. It added a few new quests to the game and a ton of interesting NPCs. But sadly NPCs is a real stress to the hardware of the game. And it could not change the fact that most towns in Skyrim are not towns but villages. Some look more beautiful than others, but everything is just on the surface. And the more time you spend with the game the more do you realize it. Everything seems to be massive, but is actually downscaled.
The only thing you seem to never run out. Ruins. Ruins and more ruins. Dwemer, Nordic, Caves. But once you saw one of them, you know them all.
Bigger (or more) is not always better. I see games like food actually. Bethesda is the kind of company that makes fast food. They are literally the McDonalds of gaming. But a McDonalds burger is not a Filet Mignon. And no matter how many Burgers you can get for the price of one Filet Mignon, they cannot replace it.
I know, it's the comfy (sissy) choice, but I adore standing on that lil rooftop, gazing out over the river 
