I often wonder what process the devs went through when determining what optional rules from pf1e to make core in the playtest. The action economy from unchained is great and I do very much enjoy it - but I really wish they had built the new system with a version of Armor as DR from Ultimate Combat. A system that differentiates 'hitting' the target, and 'damaging' the target. By keeping Touch AC in the new system, this differentiation is still happening, just not in an intuitive way. I'd love to see something where the modified Attack roll is compared to the target's Defense score. Defense would be Dex + Deflection (shield if raised and/or parry if active) + Stance (defensive and/or dodging) + Circumstance (Cover, Screening, etc). If it hits, then the damage roll is compared to the target's Protection score. This could be Con + Armor + Shield (if taking the block).
I know I've read criticisms of the armor as dr rules before, in that sometimes it ends up with the complete inability to damage the opponent - I think that could certainly be avoided - especially if an 'absorbed' hit still did a minimum of 1 hp per damage dice rolled. A thousand cuts could still take down the armored brute in this case, and it's an easy minimum to determine.
With the way weapon scaling works damage reduction could remove dice maybe, it would make the math easier.
So if the attack hits you but is under your protection score (or whatever) reduce the damage by one dice, so at low levels that just removes the die and makes it the +Str/Dex damage. and at higher levels it could mitigate the effect of magic weapons or multiple damage die attacks.
Not sure if it would work out but something to think about anyways.
I'm not sure removing dice has the granularity required at low levels. I mean, what would be the difference between plate armor and scale armor? If there's only one dice to deal with, then the effect of the armor would be identical.
Wasn't your first post about comparing the hit to a defence DC and then a protection DC? I was thinking if it hit the defence DC but not the protection DC than it would do one die less of damage. Heavier armors would have higher protection DCs but allow less dex and therefore have lower defense DCs or something like that. I may have not understood your post though.
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I've seen several ways of doing DR by armour:
1) subtract a fixed amount of damage (eg Runequest, many others)
2) subtract a die of damage, varying by armour type (Dragon Warriors, C&S, d6)
3) roll above a number to halve the damage (I forget which game)
4) roll above a number to negate extra from crits (One Ring, fortitude in PF1)
3) roll above a number to eliminate the damage (true20)
6) divide the damage by x (Golden Heroes)
7) roll damage on a different chart (Rolemaster)
and a few others in the hazy past
Some of these scale better than others. If a kobold does 1d4 and a rune giant does 4d6+22, just subtracting 6 for plate mail isn't a good rule. But just being able to bounce 40 damage from the giant with a lucky roll isn't good either. So it needs something of a compromise, and that gets complicated and mathy.