Another sidenote:

This change seems to be a tone-down for one single class and another set of classes. The first is shifters, who don't wear armor and so can't make use of any sort of deflection. The second group is "all classes that rely on melee to some degree but don't get aim, precision aim or opp. strike". Since I'm not sure which classes get those skills, I can't specify the members of this set. I would suppose that classes like bard, shaman, etc. are included.

Here's my reasoning. The hard-core melee guys (warriors, orcs, etc.) get skills (aim, precision aim, opp. strike) that to a large degree negate the armor bonuses their opponents just received. So for those classes things remain much the same as before. But for someone who can't practice those skills, they just lost some offense. Such classes typically don't rely as heavily on melee, so the nerfage isn't severe, but it still seems like a net downgrade.