How does it work with weapon speed in this game? Are some weapons faster than others? Can I increase the speed somehow?

1. Yes, each weapon has a "speed factor", which controls the weapon speed. As usual, daggers are the fastest weapons.
2. Yes, by increasing your SPD. Also, skill level seems to affect the weapon speed but I am not sure.

I was wondering...got a very nice mace in solstheim but it isnt as fast as goldbrand, though...i was wondering if it would have been that i have a low skill level in blunt weapons

I think the speed of the weapon depends on it's weight, which would make sense. So daggers, being lighter than swords, attack faster, which is why stealthy thievs use them.

Weapon speed is an independent variable that can be set in the construction set. It is totally independent of weapon weight. If weapon weight was the key feature then daedric and ebony weapons would be increadibly slow when compared to 'normal' weapons.

Anybody notice that if your stamina equal to 0 your weapon speed is fast?

From a list of Daedric weapons.......

speed weapon
------- ---------
1.00 Battleaxe, Spear, War Hammer
1.25 Claymore, Cresent, War Axe
1.30 Mace
1.35 Dai Katana, Longsword
1.50 Club, Katana
1.75 Staff
2.00 Short Sword
2.25 Tanto, Wakazashi
2.50 Dagger

So a dagger would be able to strike 5 times in the same amount of time as it would take a battleaxe to strike twice.

Does the character's Speed attribute have an effect on that?

No, character speed determines how fast you can move.

Oooh. Related to that, does strength have an effect on how much damage you do? And do any attributes affect armour rating/class/stat/I'm new to this game?