I, too, liked creating spells in Oblivion. I also am not so happy with the slowly leveling of the loot and monsters. If you pick a Master level lock when you are at level 5, I realize that you gain more experience, but you should also gain some serious loot. I also would have prefered having the toughest monsters in some areas right from the start. I don't want the whole world to be explorable, with the toughest monsters being just a bit tougher than me. I want some places to be flat out impossible to start out with, even if it is just caves and the like. The Falmer were tough at level 5, but by level 20, they're pushovers.