Too easy? Raise difficulty to max then ;p
Don't know how it'll affect Skyrim, but in Morrowind at max difficulty little mudcrab almost killed me with 1 blow, while I missed almost all hits on him, haven't tried raising difficulty in Skyrim, as I just started and wasn't playing much it yet.
About skills, they oriented character building on perks, each time you level up, you choose a skill and there're a lot perks in each skill tree. But I agree that removing classic attributes was dumb. Of course morrowind+oblivion stats increase system was stupid (hmm, I need to raise speed, agility and strength on max this level, going to trainer and increase my non-main hand-to-hand, blunt and marksman skills on 10), but it doesn't mean that they should remove those stats at all.
Also I don't know if there will be a level scale - one of the stupidest things in most RPGs: Hey I leveled! So what? Everyone else leveled with you anyway. If level scale will be there, then I hope construction set for Skyrim will be released soon (if it's not already), so at least I can remove this silly thing myself.