I've never heard of the towers having stones before, I'm guessing the amulet was the stone of Cyrodill?
Indeedey it was. Iirc, Martin's pretty dragon statue became the new stone, or at least so it was theorised.
Skyrim removed attributes,
Attributes had no narrative impact on neither Oblivion or Morrowind, and most of what they did matter for is done by perks now. Removing them also removed part of the extremely broken levelling system where you had to game the mechanics to get the best, or even good, results, rather than playing the game.
classes
Classes were hardly anything else than a title in Oblivion. Removing classes did away with another part of the crappy levelling system, the one where you had to increase skills that wasn't part of your class to get good results, or alternatively, not put the skills you're intending to use among your class' skills to begin with.
birthsigns (Actually, you get to change your birthsign whenever you want)
So, let me get this right, you're saying that the perk system is bad because it doesn't let you change your play style as easily, but when it comes to "birthsigns" being able to change is bad?
Personally, I think removing the signs from the character was one of the few bad things with the new system, but then again, there's nothing forcing you to change signs - I know all my character has been running around with the same ones for the majority of their games. The only times I change them is when I find one that matches their build better, but that's rather irrelevant seeming as if I chose at character creation I would've chosen the sign that fit the build I was intending for that character the best to begin with.
and a lot of stuff that is RPG-ish. Morrowind felt more of a RPG.
I don't think so. To me they're exactly the same kind of action game with "RPG elements". Action has always been the focus of TES games, and I feel the system fits the game they're trying to make the best in Skyrim.
Well, out of III to V at least. Daggerfall was better, but it's size made it a whole different kind of game.
On the perk system, I think it improved the game as a whole, even if certain perks are rather stupid. Like was said, they require focus that make each character special (attributes certainly never did this in MW or OB) and no, there's nothing stopping you from focusing on skills from the different archetypes. You can't change build halfway through, and that is a good thing in my book. Certainly much more "RPG-ish" than going from sneaky archer to heavy-armoured battlemage just because you became bored with the combat.
Races used to matter because we had attributes. Orcs weren't meant to be mages. You can raise your INT to 100 but it's not easy since you have to improve your int skills carefully. Now, Altmer mage and Orc mage doesn't have any differences. Orc's skin is green and Altmer's skin is yellow. That's all there is. I think I made my point.
Yet you say yourself all that was needed for an Orc to be just as good as an Altmer was planning, because all it comes down to is that it was "not as easy". I know, I played Orc mages in Morrowind and Oblivion both. It wasn't very hard. So no, races never really made much difference in the way you believe. An Orc's skin was green and an Altmer's skin was yellow.
I also always thought attribute bonuses because of race and/or gender was stupid in games in general. I'm not playing the statistical average of all members of the species, dammit, I'm playing an individual. There's no reason my character shouldn't be an exceptionally gifted person just because the rest of my Orc brethren are stupid brutes.