Where the hell did you get the idea that it's free? Unless $20 is what you consider free. Also, yeah, crossbows are back, which is nice for a change, considering that Skyrims array of weapons was.. lacking?
Was it Morrowind that had crossbows that you had to "pull" like a bow, instead of the other way around (shooting instantly, THEN winding)?
I was talking about throwing knives, shurikens and the general diversity of weapons (instead of just swords, you also had katanas, dikatanas, sabers, cutlasses, for daggers you also had tantos). I'm not saying that Skyrim is shitty because it doesn't have them, but adding more could always improve it, in most cases it's not really difficult, like including more blade types, instead of just swords, adding foreign stuff like scimitars and katanas, who also had their quality ratings (not sure how to call it, but it's when you can have an iron, steel, glass, elven, daedric, etc. weapon.) It's not really much but it adds to the variety and to the whole world of the game. Obviously, a modder could do this, but none of them does. Again, I'm not bashing the game, I freaking love it, it's as close as it can get to Morrowind, because I guess streamlining is just something you can't avoid today.