I'd be all for dropping armor classes completely and offering some sort of customization for armors. Something like designing your own armor and upgrading as you progress would be awesome. For example you get your basic leather armor at the start and then maybe add an iron, steel, or whatever chestpiece and maybe chainmail sleeves. The possibilities would be about endless, pauldrons, gloves, chest, back, helmet, neck and so forth all with variations from the basic materials. Each piece could have it's pros and cons and weight and whatnot. Throw in a dye process for custom colors. Hell yeah. Not sure how it would work technically, but even a system that offers mild customization would be sufficient at first. Now if you could have the customization and locational damage that's the real deal. Arrows bouncing off when they hit plate part of your armor, maybe one slips through a gap right into your neck. That'd be cool.