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Encounters and monsters are written with the assumption that PC's of a given level will have access to the big 6. (or as much as is used by the class.)
As for the barbarian being hit; it is expected. Barbarians seldom have a high enough AC to avoid taking damage. This is one of the reasons why the unchained barbarian gets a refreshing pool of temporary hit points.
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Unless you do something to compensate (automatic bonus progression, adjusting monster stats/lowering CR) the math makes it pretty clear that lacking expected bonuses to things like AC will distort the game and make things more difficult for the players.
More to the point, your players are grumbling, and while I certainly don't advocate giving in at the first sign of whining players, taking seriously the notion that players aren't having fun is a sign of good GMing.
It sounds like you are probably giving out close to enough treasure, but you aren't providing enough opportunities to convert that treasure to useful items. As a rule, I like to make sure that that happens at minimum when characters level, partly because some classes (9 level casters) get way cooler when they level regardless of any gear) while other classes really rely on their gear as they level (without gear, a 20th level fighter gets hit just as easily as a 1st level one does pretty much).
I'd recommend your party find a single use item that will teleport them to a nice magic shop and then return them to where they were after a couple of hours. Make it take a minute or so to activate so they won't be able to use it as a get out of combat thing.
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I would strongly suggest avoiding a situation where if a character does this one thing they are out of the campaign for good (this is worse than death for that character.)
Being warned by an NPC is not enough safeguard, especially when other NPCs are urging the opposite behavior.
I'd change the consequences to be humorous fey type pranks rather than effectively ending a character's existence.
You could secretly subtract 2 or 3 from every enemy attack roll until you have an chance to get them to a market. This is a way to avoid injecting high fantasy into the game. But if they are already grumbling it might be too late for this.
I use the ABP tables or look at NPCs a level or two higher than the group to get a baseline on appropriate gear.
What about buffing spells? My level 8 group would get annihilated as well without some buffs like barkskin, shield of faith for the tank and other goodies... prayer sometimes ...
So yes, AC 18 for a barbarian is slightly low but not too unusual depending on the normal combat buffs the group employs.
I want to point out that the Barb is making a choice to not gimp his speed for his AC; and is then whining about his AC. It's perfectly easy to get a +4 Chain Shirt, Leather Lamellar, etc which would instantly bump his AC to ~21 (depending on his current dex bonus.) Where he to have a simple Mithral Chain Shirt; even better. So *at least part of this is the player's fault.*
Second, it's up to you how difficult you want the campaign to be. If they're getting chopped up because they just charge everything that's totally different than if they were getting chopped up with a well executed and thought out strategy with synergies and whatnot. If they're rolling well, planning well, AND losing; that's a problem.
This could be partly the GM, but the items are only "required" due to the min-maxing of the internet. In the same way that weird lists win Mtg tournies but are considered "unviable"; builds that lack the "big 6" are simply somewhat sub optimal, rather than unusable.
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IMO, try to make strategies to approach the monsters more obvious with some rumors/NPCs, maybe even an in-game book of monster lore that helps out. Consider a monster that is WAY too powerful to fight head on but is also located in a (somewhat obviously) collapsible cave; and have his attacks weaken the struts so they are really just trying to get it to kill itself.
Try making easier encounters that are hard due to the combination of monsters or terrain; but not because of CR (making their stats and whatnot lower.) An example is mixing a bunch of Troglodytes with some C$ thing; they lower your damage and ability to hit; but are individually not that threatening and the encounter; this will peanut butter the damage and difficulty.
I suspect that the GM side of this is that you are throwing single meanies at the party and having them duke it out. This obviously leads to higher amounts of damage that the party has to eat and reliable hits from the big-bads.
I would caution that some of it is luck too. I had a party encounter a troll the other day (but they couldn't tell what it was) and it did 42 the first round; scaring off the CR4 (?) party instantly even though the next round it did single digits or nothing. The party scrambled and fled an encounter that they could've done because of variance. (Though i'm happy about it; because many encounters where I wanted to get them to run they've challenged the thing and won handily. Yet more variance!)
Now over the last couple gaming sessions I've heard some grumbling from the players about their PCs getting hit often by groups of monsters of CRs lower than their APL. There was a group of gnolls a few games ago that got in THREE good hits on the barbarian.
Some of that I attribute to monsters getting lucky but, looking over their actual gear and noting the missing defenses I started to think maybe I'd done the PCs a disservice. For example the barbarian for is 7th level and has NO deflection bonus, a +1 only from her Dex, is Medium size and wears only +1 Armor giving her a grand total of 18 AC, 16 when raging. Considering she's our front liner and the typical CR 7 monster has a +13 to hit dealing 30 avg damage, its no wonder that this PC is getting beat up on the regular.
Have him find a crate of Enlarge Person potions and a +1 bardiche. --Now he's a "second-liner" who stands behind the actual front-liner of the group (who is the person with the highest AC, like a dwarf fighter or a halfling unchained rogue accumulating defensive fighting bonuses), and takes mucho AoOs with a 2d8 weapon as opponents mill around inside his 50' diameter threaten zone.
You aren't actually that far below the expected - ABP has Ring of Protection, but no Amulet of Natural Armor or shield bonus at this point.
Presuming you have four PCs, that's a total +5 AC bonus across the party instead of the expected +8.
It's normal for a Barbarian to take lots of hits - that's what the big health pool (and the DR) is for. For instance, I'm currently GMing for a group of 6th level PCs, and the Barbarian has "only" two more AC, due to 14 Dex and ABP's ring-equivalent at 5th level (no Beast Totem yet). The "tankyness" comes from the temporary HP from unRage and the DR from Invulnerable Rager, plus Superstition against spells. Of course, most of these aren't build in, neither is Raging Vitality (which almost every cBarbarian should have).
Optimization level has more impact on the PCs combat prowess than equipment level. Also, the PCs net wealth may be close to WBL guidelines, but wealth that doesn't effect combat (or helps them solve other situations that would require player recources) is useless, and thus shouldn't be included in the calculation.
I don't know what the PCs look like, but I'd say you should think about toning down encounters a bit. Have them fight more low CR enemies instead of few higher CR ones, and pick enemies that target a variety of defenses, not just HP via regular AC. The Barbarian may be a bit weak against attack rolls, but should stand better against save-allowing effect and combat maneuvers (at least the items are there).
I want to point out that the Barb is making a choice to not gimp his speed for his AC; and is then whining about his AC. It's perfectly easy to get a +4 Chain Shirt, Leather Lamellar, etc which would instantly bump his AC to ~21 (depending on his current dex bonus.)
Unless I'm mistaken, the Barbarian is wearing a +1 breastplate.
Y'know ironically my players are so paranoid about the elites in the dungeon they're in that they're hoarding all their resources. A few levels ago they either crafted or received in loot several Bless and Shield of Faith spell scrolls; these are still collecting dust in their "party loot" section.
That's actually pretty normal - just look at the size of the respective TV Tropes entry!