Yeah I don't wear the helmet. I don't wear any helmet when I reach a high enough level actually.

Yep, it's broken, you need Force Without Effort to get that effect at all. Dear BGS, please fix this.
The other thing is the reflect damage, not sure if it's a glitch or intentional, but it's not you take 90%, they take 10%, you still take full damage with that perk.

I agree. None of my characters have even come close to the armor cap. I think the closest I have come on any of my characters is 300-something-or-other. To be honest, I've actually stopped paying attention to AR. I don't even know what the AR of my current character is. I can't say I've run into any problems.

That's too funny. I just improve things until they hit Legendary (if that). If it's 400...ok, if it's 250 then that's fine too. My warriors usually have a bazillion HPs anyway and the rest of my characters seldom get hit.

The Steed stone is all you need to wear whatever armor you want right away without encumbrance. It is possible to get any armor to the cap, but it is quicker to get there with the heavy stuff. Having said that, both of my most recent characters used light armor exclusively. My Altmer achieved 1100+ armor rating with her matched glass set, which is a waste. With my Nord, I saved a perk and settled for 862 with a mixture of elven and glass, also more than I can use because of the cap. Getting max armor protection is really quite easy over the long run.

Although taking the Steed stone would forbid you from taking the awesome Lover's stone. Which is surely the best in the game, at least to start.

Agreed. The Daedric armor looks pretty ugly in Skyrim...

Ebony armor is one of my favorites. Since my characters are usually melee fighters, I like the added protection from heavy armor, which helps out early on before my character reaches a high health total.

Ebony armor didn't get the set bonus from heavy armor at one point, though I'm not sure if that has been patched yet. It is fixed in the unofficial patch.

The hand to hand and falling height perks are a bit of a mystery. Why put those into heavy armor? They seem out of place, as if Bethesda didn't want to discard them, but didn't know where else to put them. If only Bethesda didn't get rid of acrobatics...

Damn, Fists of Steel doesn't take improved values? Guess I'll scrap my khajiit brawled plans lol. I wanted to slay a dragon, Chuck Norris style.