There, you got your own post, Bluecross. Leave my shins alone.
Now on to NightOwl.
Meaning you may run into hard levels at 1st level, and easy levels at 10th - you seriously want that??? I don't.
Well in an open world, you should have limitations I think. And to be honest, in some games (let's use single-player models since we're talking about oblivion and fallout) like Fable, the encounters get stronger with you, even though rather than a "level" you had an age that was based on what skills you had increased. But in that case, if you wander into the wrong cave, you can be killed. You aren't instantly vaporized, but you get knocked around a good bit and that gives you incentive to GTFO.
But how do you know you're going to get Laser Sword 2,000??? "Let me come back when I get more strength points"... yea, that's immersive 
Well, I didn't mean you'd come to that realization then. You'd say "well I need something, I can't quite do this." And one day you get a laser sword 2000 or someone comments "wow you're so strong you could probably go to the hills of death and hold your own." These kind of indicators are always there anyway, I'm just saying I prefer that to "hey look a brick wall that doesn't match anything else.... maybe I should come back here.
auto leveling isn't an issue on any of them except number 4.
But see, that's the problem. I'm not saying there was no way around it, at that point I could make a spell that paralyzed stuff really cheaply so I just paralyzed and ran until I got away. But it was obvious to me that I was outmatched. I was a Breton so I used my dragon shield and stuff was still hitting hard enough to 2-shot me. Also, fortunately the pathing for some of the monsters isn't 100% in that game so I could get up on stuff and run away.
You're kind of confusing Oblivion with other RPG's - you were never a lowly pig farmer (villager, orphan, etc). You start with a class, you are proficient at stuff, etc.
True, and in every Elder Scrolls game your character has some kind of background that makes it so they ended up stuck in the position they are. They leave it open enough that you can claim you were falsely imprisoned, or you were a thief and you got caught, but it's up to you, and that's cool. But I thought we were talking about Fallout.
In the first, you've never even been outdoors until they kick you out. And you become a loner hero, because they turn you away (sorry for the spoilers, anyone who hasn't played it yet, but if you haven't you're in the wrong damn forums). You have certain abilities and talents, yes, but you are just beginning your journey. You're just starting out, and you're just learning what it means to be in this new world. The second game is similar, you're descended from the holy Vault 13, but you've never ventured far outside your village. Once again you can have skills and abilities, but you're just starting your life's journey. I'm not saying in age, since you can be 99 if you want, but as Orson Scott Card says, "you tell the story that is important, or else you wouldn't have had a reason to write about it. So it's the most important story of your hero's life."
I except fallout 3 to be like that, I want to be a noob at the beginning or else it's no fun when you turn into a badass somewhere near the "climax" of your gaming experience.
Oblivion (like its predecessors) is a game that rewards role playing WAY more than it does power leveling. Follow the main story, and you'll have fun. Don't follow the main story, and you'll have fun. Try and cram both into one game, you may not have fun, then, depending on how you do it.
And that's fair enough. I like it a lot more than Fable in that you will never have a character that is a master of all arts, because there'd be no replay value. Fable, you can be a freaking God, of course by then you look like Old Man Winter.
And like I said, I don't think there should be NO leveling, because that means the world is not changing because of your actions. If it doesn't, then it's hard to feel like you're having an impact on the world, and it feels like real life which is boring as all hell.
If you are concerned about levels and stats, etc, you won't have fun in any Elder Scrolls game. Oblivion (etc) gives you more of a sense of "I'm getting better at this skill" than it does "I'm getting more powerful than everyone else". Personally, I like that take MUCH better.
I'm not worried about being the ultimate badass, like I said I like developing the character. The RP in RPG stands for Role Playing, so I like to imagine that the character is growing as the game goes on.
My frustration with the leveling in Oblivion is more about the little imbalances. If you pick athletics as a major skill, it's going to level up fast, and usually unintentionally. So you'll end up spending modifier points on that stat (was it speed? I can't remember, it's been awhile). If my stats weren't balanced right, my offense went up faster than my defense and I'd be able to kill people with my breath but they could hit me with an arrow and cause me to explode. Conversely, with my magic characters, I'm level 20 and can use my mysticism to see into the eighth dimension, so I have a really good view when someone stabs me to death as they take one damage from my level 2 destruction-based fireball. Not that I intentionally "grinded (sic)" my mysticism, but because my need to create soulstones or do whatever forced me to use those spells quicker than others.
Also, this is not directly related to the topic at hand, but I'm psyched about seeing it be a survival-based game. I feel like every RPG that exists requires you to be a serial killer just to finish the game. It's nice when you can get away with not killing people (which in oblivion you could avoid random attacks if you want, but it kind of got old trying to sneak past everyone to the boss, especially since a good source for skill increases was getting into combat).
So in conclusion, I don't have a problem with the concept of auto-leveling, just the way it played out, especially in Oblivion. In all honesty, I think that's the only thing that killed me about the game, because I'm a huge nerd for The Elder Scrolls universe (I got the collector's edition and read through the history book before I made my first character). I love the depth that they put into their universe, with books and dialog and quests galore. But I don't like that the entire universe warps based on your level. To me that takes away the sense of danger in the universe. And once again I just don't want to get killed every time I wander too far away from town, but I want The High Warlord of Asskickertonfieldville to kick my ass if I try to stab him right off the bat.
It's a mixed bag, of course. I remember the first time I played Everquest, I had a bard. One of the songs they get is Chords of Dissonance, which causes a little damage to anything around you every few seconds. This does not discern between friend or foe, and the first time I sat down to drink by the guards, I hit them with the spell and died.
The first thing I said was "holy shit that's awesome."
Then I had to collect my corpse and I was more angry than happy.
