The numbers are really still off at this point. Even just the type of armors, being light, medium and heavy within each tier. Needs more diversity. 

The stages of armor should also use something like this. And each tier of armor should also have a masterwork version. With a special name and so on.

Cloth: Cloth armor, Padded armor, Mage armor. 

Leather: Light Leather, Studded Light, Leather, Studded Leather, Heavy Leather, Studded Heavy Leather.

Hide: Light Hide, Studded Light Hide, Hide, Studded Hide, Heavy Hide, Studded Heavy Hide.

Chain: Light Chainmail, Chainmail, Heavy Chainmail

Scalemail: Light Scalemail, Scale Mail, Heavy Scalemail

Chain and Plate: Light Chain & Plate, Chain and Plate, Heavy Chain and Plate

Full Platemail: Light Platemail, Platemail, Heavy Platemail,

Warmail: Light Warmail, Warmail, Heavy Warmail.

(Warmail is something more akin to that traditional fantasy armor, exaggerated pieces, thicker, spiked, with edges.. etcetera.)

And so on.. and then for each tier there could be different types of Masterwork armor. (I would say check out 4th edition D&D for a list of their masterwork armors.)

And this way those armors could really be interesting, but it would also allow for different style weapons, light versions, heavy versions, maybe even styles like Paridan, and Magnar.. etcetera..

Heavier equipment also affects your combat speed.

Adding more visual variety would be nice as well. But in tiers, I woould go for these:

Cloth - Nothing unless magical

Hide - 1 Def

Leather - 1 or 2 Def

Chain - 2 or 3 Def -0.05CS

Brigandine - 3 or 4 Def -0.10 CS

Plate - 4 or 5 Def -0.25 CS

Warmail - 6 Def -0.50 CS

Dividing these would be excessive imo. But each might have different appearances would be nice. Scalemail might be on a level equal to Brigandine yet look different and more often be magical. Remember also that greaves/gauntlets/cloak are separate. DIfferent materials might also lead to different results.

You can make a case for medium type armors if the costs are good, that is you can crank out more guys with it for the same cost. But with how powerful combat speed is right now, I'd tend to avoid anything with a CS penalty either unless I'm deliberately trying to make "heavy" units, in which case I'd go for the strongest defense I can get.

You could do more here if movement and attacks are split into different things, because then medium armor could carry a movement speed penalty but not a combat speed (attacks) penalty. At that point it's more competitive.

but combat speed is OP in UNITS

+1 is great

-1 is very bad

-0 .1 is just irrelevant

but well i know all numbers on those are temporary so nothinig to be worried

Walking around, even putting on platemail, isn't the same as fighting in it.

Generally, gaps in the armor in the arm area limited slowdown to the arms for swinging.  Charging on the back of a horse, the negative effect is reduced to zero (even a positive).

I've worn half plate.  Just once.  Won't say it was a pleasant experience.  Too damn heavy.  But assuming I were strong enough to swing a sword in combat, I don't think the effect on my arms really would've been that much... However the weight on my whole body certainly removed my ability to run.

The reason I'd want to keep the paper doll for armor is for magic items like gloves, boots, etc.

I think, though, for just basic, everyday armor it should really just take up a torso slot.

EDIT: You know, I still like having the choice of different greaves, gauntlets etc. so I take that back.

I just had a brainwave and thought i'd drop it here to see if it has any worth.

What about an ongoing, research based increase for all armor/weapon types in a similar fashion to the resource upgrades (the better resource production percentages).

All armor types start out with relatively equal values then you can choose to improve one type per research breakthrough. As you improve that type it gets a stat increase and it's next tier becomes harder to research (the chance of it appearing in the breakthrough list drops). The better the type of equipment you choose, the faster it's chance to appear drops but the greater it's values increase versus a lesser item.

EDIT: This way you can still throw out most of the initial sets early but still have things to aim for as the game continues.

this is quite interesting

And here's the other aspect to having a really deep list of various armors. It allows the designers more depth to customize various stats. Such as combat speed, defense values, physical movement modifiers, and and a variety that can vary per game.. for what is relearned. But also, since the idea of researching down an armor tree, to get access to ones with better benefits, may pay off so the difference in heavy chainmail where it reduces slashing damage, and has a high defense value, but not as stiff a movement penalty as say early stages of scale mail.. 

Basically a larger pool to work with would besides allowing for greater visual deviations, but a broader range of equipment that can be learned. Including that you could in theory go deep down a armor tech tree to get to masterwork versions that provide special ability related benefits or that also when combined with certain enchantments that could be learned, they provided special bonuses or some such. Endless variety and mixing and matching. 

They could make it so that the Torso is in one tier, and the limbs come in the following tier. That would make it so that first you would have no armor, then you would get the Leather Cuirass, then after that you would get the Chainmail Shirt and Light Plate Cuirass along with the Leather limb parts, and so on.