For looks and usually what I just use all the time because you become so over powered:

Companion's Wolf armor set for my sword & board Nord. (Daedric for best)
Thieve's Guild Master set for my rogue. (Dragonscale for best)

I've been using Tullius' armor since I completed the CW quests way back. I use for looks alone. I have it upgraded, but not all the way to legendary, I don't use exploits. I recently enchanted it with a restore health enchantment + using the Lord Stone to give it a little extra oompf. Indeed, I wouldn't want to play the game with a 700+ damage daedric power armor with 11 enchantments glitched onto it or something silly. That would ruin everything. I am still very vulnerable to attacks, and I dig it that way.

Personally I think the best armor is already the coolest looking armor, which makes it difficult for me to bother with anything else. My second favorite is the ancient nord armor.

As in every TES game so far vanilla armors look bad. Skyrim has this stupid "no pants" rule and not even the armpits are covered with most armors. I always use mods in TES games though and the Einherjar and War Chief armor mods are f'ing great.

yeah it seems nords don't wear shirts and imperials don't wear pants

I disagree - admittedly Niamh does not use vanilla armours but that said the armours look much much better than the vanilla ones in Oblivion and Morrowind.
In my view, obv...

They certainly are better than OB and MW, mostly. Bit it really botters me that the Nords don't wear shirts and the Imperials have this no pants policy going on. It's SKYRIM, the coldest place in Tamriel and most armors look like summer gear for Cyrodiil. I love the Dragonplate Armor, but the armpits arr not covered which is just completely stupid. A shirt and a chainmail would be enough, but no, leave the main arteries unprotected.

Unlike fallout, I get my ass kicked on a Colossal scale whenever I run into enemies, so I could give a [censored] less if my armor were ugly.

On the other hand... In games like fallout, where I can actually survive, I tend to use the armor from the dude in the trailer of Fallout New Vegas. I forgot the name of it, so there's my reference.

my girl likes to show off her assets. she is such a fashonista.

bikini fur armor and forsworn armor for light armor

wolf armor, steel plate armor and falmer armor for heavy armor.

No one else thinks that Dwarven armor looks cool?

I prefer Nightingale Armor with the Thief Guildmaster hood. It's just a "So-So" armor set, but to me, subtle-cool looking armor is in painfully short supply. Daedric is too brazen, and Dragonscale/Plate is too ugly.

I think it looks cool - I put a full set on the mannequin in Vlindrel. It looks cumbersome, but cool. I'd probably go with that if I did sword and board because it just looks like armor in which you can stand your ground and exchange blows.

I think Dwarven looks very cool. I used it for the longest time until I had my smithing up to where I could craft Ebony. I never bothered with the Orcish stuff. I actually just smithed some new Dwarven armor last night. With smithing at 100 and 4 fortify smithing items (ring, necklace, gauntlets, armor) and a potion I was able to push it's armor class way up there.

My sixy Bretan chick looks best in:

Cool looking armor
1. Forsworn Armor
2. Ancient Nord Armor
3. Dragonscale Armor
4. Fur Armor

Most effective Armor
1. Daedric
2. Dragonbone

I really like the Nightingale Armor but dont know if I want to bother with the T.G. on this toon. I really didnt like the TG questline. Starting the quest for the Ebony Mail for her tonight so I'll see how she looks in it.