yeah,
Definately nerf the Monk Robe, so stupid to give this item out to ANYONE, my party has a monk who wants this and it totally unbalances the game--period. why not give a fighters garter belt out and anyone who wears that gets some of the distinct bonuses of the fighter, or better yet powers the fighter to 4 levels higher. Insanity.
Definately use helmets as a separate form of armor buffing up AC.
Good idea to add some minor damage reduction to heavy armors.
Shields certainly need a boost and a reason for someone use them vs THW.
Getting rid of dex and movement penalties to armor will solve a lot of problems without having to invent more rules.
Paladins are born armor wearers, like knights. Who ever even thinks of paladis not wearing plate--they should fit the archetype by having bonus to plate wearing.
That being said, I cant EVEN BELIEVE that this book can revamp the rogue so completely with rogue powers and such and leave other classes completely gimped with no revamp, just a stab at trying to adjust broken rules to begin with.
Paladin, and ranger needs complete overhaul like the rogue got--period. Anything less is tragedy. Nobody REALLY cares about backward compatibility, they just want something to work. It will be compatible if the rogue is still compatible, belive me. (just a side note--I love what you did with the rogue--just need to do it with all the other classes).
Cheers!