We're just not mentioning it that often. I've said it before, I'll say it again. If get caught, I die. I've never adjusted the difficultly, so I'm on Adept. I save a lot. As in, each time before I crest the next hill, every larger room in a dungeon.
Some mobs are easy, some (bandit camp halfway between Falkreath and Solitude) take me a dozen tries or more. I still get killed by bears if they catch me unaware and I don't use potions. Same with Saber Cats. People with two handed weapons still two-shot me. This is largely because I rarely upped my Health and focused on entirely on Stamina. It has gotten worse since I switched to even lighter armor for aesthetic and magical bonuses reasons. I run around the corner a lot, wait for sneak to go Hidden again. I shoot from nearly my max range whenever I can.
If you're not big on Destruction or Heavy Armor/Block/Restoration, the character requires quite a bit more strategy in each encounter. It's similar to the Fallouts. If you played SmallGuns/Guns (FO3/NV), the game was a piece of cake. In fact, with NV, the game was a joke with high Guns skills. I played on Very Hard and had absolutely no problem. If you played Energy or melee without T-51B, the games were more difficult.
Some builds just work better than others. Skyrim isn't anywhere near as bad as Oblivion, where MinMaxing was a requirement, not a suggestion.