I'm near the end of the main quest, I've just been transported to Alduin's place by the dragon we captured. I joined the stormcloak rebellion to see what the quest was like and the fuckers invaded my home town of whiterun, I wished I gone with the imperials, the stormcloaks are dicks!
I'm one of the few people who like the menu as it is. Admittedly it took a bit of getting used to, and a something as basic as a menu shouldn't really need getting used to. But once i was used to it i found it really handy as it means i can select anything just by twiddling the fingers on my left hand and don't need to faff about with the mouse.
I use SkyUI as well, and often only use my left hand on the keyboard to do everything. The main difference between the default and the modded menu for me is that you can see so much more on screen. By default you get something like 9 or 11 items visible at once with the ones to the top and bottom faded out slightly, but with SkyUI you can see at least twice as many plus basic info at the same time. Stuff like sorting, favouriting and switching categories is much neater too.
I'm beginning to think i've bitten off more than i can chew with this game. I'm vaguely aware what +1 means when it comes to swords, but have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. I found a chair on top of a little tower. The game give me the option to sit down. So i did. That wasted 5 minutes. People keep asking me to do things for them, and as I've not yet found the journal i keep forgetting the side quests :C
Minor point and i guess I'm looking at the freeform nature the wrong way, but damn - it's overwhelmingly huge.