Somatic (S): A somatic component is a measured and precise movement of the hand. You must have at least one hand free to provide a somatic component.
is from the magic section.
Armor has ASF because . well.. wizards don't wear armor.
If you are looking for a more substantial reason than that, you aren't going to find it.
Some people natter on about metal being problematic (even while some spells have metal components to them) while others natter on about the armor being restrictive (while cold weather clothing provides no ASF and can be just as moving restrictive..)
It really just boils down to.
Magi shall not weareth the armoreth.
-S
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Somatic (S): A somatic component is a measured and precise movement of the hand. You must have at least one hand free to provide a somatic component.
is from the magic section.
Armor has ASF because . well.. wizards don't wear armor.
If you are looking for a more substantial reason than that, you aren't going to find it.Some people natter on about metal being problematic (even while some spells have metal components to them) while others natter on about the armor being restrictive (while cold weather clothing provides no ASF and can be just as moving restrictive..)
It really just boils down to.
Magi shall not weareth the armoreth.
-S
This sums it up pretty well, though the fluff is that wearing any sort of weighted, stiff armor restricts the caster's ability to perform somatic components. If you look at it more along the lines of Avatar's spellcasting rather than the traditional "point and click" magic in the movies it gives you a better idea of what the somatic component for arcane magic is supposed to be: big, wide, and using the whole body.
This is just a fluff restriction though. The mechanical reason is that Pathfinder (and 3.5 and earlier) believes that full arcane casters are simply too powerful to be allowed unhindered access to armor.
Both your arguements there are what i'd expected to hear. But to me what page 91 says is that arcane casting only requires one hand to do (I agree that yes, this hand should be able to move freely). Therefore why is there a problem with having armour or a shield on the other unused arm?
Because they don't want to penalize casters further for wanting to climb and use other forms of locomotion? Seriously, it's just fluff. It's a legacy belief that wizards don't wear armor. Though it's be reasonable to assume that arcane magic requires very precise movements, and a shield can throw off your balance and what-not. The lightest "forget me" shield, the buckler, has a 5% chance to ruin your day. That's pretty low, and backs up my argument.
Do note there's a whole line of concentration checks for adverse conditions. I think trying to climb and cast would count as vigorous movement. If you're just hanging on and don't try to move that turn, no problem. But hanging off a wall is a terrible place for a arcane caster to draw attention to himself.
For the armor questions and 'only needing a hand' for the somatic components, think of it as you only need 1 hand completely dedicated if you are otherwise unrestricted by armor. No getting around it by just removing the sleeve.
For a real world example, imagine trying to throw a baseball in a suit of armor. If you remove one of the arms of the armor, can you throw as well as if the suit was off? Certainly you'd do better, but you'll still get thrown off by the weight a fair amount, and the armor's less effective. As you remove pieces it gets easier, but then you have less and less armor...