Not on staff, but here's my take...

>2) It seems that all armor has been flagged as to whether it
>is light, metal etc. But I noticed that the examine command
>still shows just "armor". Could this be altered to show which
>armor type?

It seems that the "armor use" skills are based on armor material. Mystical = energy, Stone = stone/gem, Light = cloth/leather, Bone = bone/flesh?, Metal = metal, etc.

>3) I'm thinking of combat past early levels where there are
>few misses. By that I mean that first you dodge/parry/shield
>block. If something gets through those then there is a chance
>to deflect. That's laid out in the help. But if the chance to
>miss has not been changed what concrete effect is there?

Every melee *hit* also got past dodge/parry/shield block. So every hit *or* miss (under the pre-deflection system) now has a chance to be deflected. At least that's the way I understand it.