I will buy Skyrim if there's at least an OPTION to simplify the level-up system as opposed to Oblivion. I've tried to play through Oblivion 4 times now, and what ultimately kills it for me is having to...
1. Have a pen and paper out with all of the skills and what stat they are governed by out, and tally off everytime I level up one of those skills to make sure I hit ten of each stat before I gain a level.
2. Keep casual track of what skills you've been leveling up so that your stats go up at least somewhat close to their maximum value everytime you level up, and ultimately get the crap beaten out of you by random baddies later in the game, turning every battle into a cat and mouse of bash, block, bash, backtrack while healing, keep healing, use a potion, repeat.
3. Don't level up and constantly be annoyed by the level up icon taunting me, daring me to take a nap.
The way I see it, it would take minimal development time to implement the OPTION for at least one type of simplified levelup system and this would make the game more accessible to less hardcore RPGers... Perhaps, say if you gain 8 ranks in Strength skills, 10 in Wisdom, and 10 in Speed when you level up... As long as you gain two more ranks of Strength skills before you go to a bed you still get the maximum Strength bonus. And maybe another option even more simple than that, where you simply level up everytime you rank up 10 skills governed by 3 separate stats.
So, does anybody that's been following the Skyrim development closer than I have have any idea how the levelup system(s) compare to Oblivion?