I've never gotten into a random fight with some drunk tavern-brute who just plain didn't like me. Moreover, I never see villagers getting into a scuffle over who has the right to this part of land, who's been sleeping with who's wife, who owes who skooma money...All instances like that seem to be tied into quests.

Agreed

Third that

If you made a mod with random fights you'd have to make sure that no one could kill each other or the NPC population would go bye bye and the game would get pretty lonely

Oh I'm actaully working on a mod which adds a Nordic village which allows radient AI to go its craziness, they will all be masters at hand to hand combat and invinciable (perferably not essentical so you don't get those annoying messages all the time but effectively the same thing) and when someone is knocked out they drop all their booze and food and end combat with everyone else. They drop their food and booze because they are nords and I will have them seeking alcohol (and getting into fights about it) for a large part of the day. It is just a fun mod, take a while for me to finish it though, I'm still busy playing.