1. Certain scale armors are the proper upgrade for a given level. Simply because they are scale does not mean they are worse than something which happens to be plate. Scale armor is typically X2 or X3, while plate is X0 or X5.

2. It might honestly be that some folks all but refuse to wear the "Heavy Armor" pieces. You know, the ones with the immobile helmet that make you look completely retarded... yeah those... I swear if we had the option to not show the helmet on those, we'd see a lot more people wearing them... The look okay overall... just dat helm... dat helm...