Right.

It essentially comes down to this:

Armor tanking is for players who aren't quite experts on strafing and gun-game, and that's totally fine. It creates a bridge between veteran high-intensity FPS players and players who aren't quite as well versed in the fine arts of action game mobility and precision. There's nothing wrong with that and honestly, It took me a while to really pinpoint what my problems with both tanking styles were. As we (the players) become better and more well-versed in our FPS gaming abilities we start to rely less and less on advantages like that which armor stacking gives. We start to learn more advanced techniques that provide opportunities through harder gameplay styles that armor couldn't offer.

One really good example of this that is entirely anecdotal was when I realized (and somewhat taught) that forward/backward movement is much faster than side-to-side movement. However, simply moving forward/back doesn't accomplish much if you're trying to "dodge" (I use that term loosely because it's more metaphysical than anything) gunfire. "V" strafing works better with armor tanking because of the mobility reduction and once you have that down you really start to understand the nuances of how strafing in itself works.

Once we train ourselves in multiple strafing techniques we can experiment with counter strafing (strafing against what our opponent is doing) and we start to have less reliance on armor because we realize that the gains of mobility outweigh the gains of buffer HP.

To put it another way: If there is 100 damage coming at you, which is better? Dodging 35% of the rounds or tanking all of them and having 20% more HP?

Armor HP isn't the issue. The issue arrives when the negations to mobility -from- stacking armor HP are more worthwhile than mobility based gameplay options. This is why strafe speed penalties were applied to armor plates, I feel, because the negations to stacking plates weren't outweighing the benefits of running shield mobility.

EDIT: There are a few exceptions to this sort of meta, however, and it outlines the basis for why so many players have issues with the Shotgun/HMG meta that has perpetuated since earlier in the year. Shotguns, being high alpha damage, often go hand-in-hand with EWAR and cloaking which strafing and mobility cannot defend well against. Neither, then, does it defend well against HMGs which completely negate mobility due to their high rate of fire. Essentially, both of those weapons (and the meta involved with them) put an end to the old era of the Assault / Combat Logi proliferation because it resulted in less gun game and more focus on high alpha/rate of fire to negate those old ideals.

You know Rattati preferred Gallente back when most Gallente stuff was ****.


Hell, he brought Gallente out of the Dark ages of complete ****** weapons and suits.

Plasma Cannon, fixed.
Assault Rifles, improved.
Suits, improved.
Regen, installed.

Now, if you wanted to make an argument for favorites I should direct you to the race that have the most BPOs. This race has damn near more BPOs than all the other races combined.

Now that's some hardcore favoritism.

Yeah, no, I wasn't saying that Armor vs Shield is going to win in the 1-v-1. Toe-to-toe? Yes, armor will win, because that is what it is designed for. High buffer with option to fit high damage is a recipe for destruction in the 1-v-1. This is where Armor excels and it is entirely by design.
The only time you can ever say that the Gal Assault has the same speed as Caldari is in the eventuality that you are only using ferroscales and repair modules which not only neuters the amount of buffer you can have it's basically wasting low slots. In any other case (plates/reactives) you are reducing your speed and this is casualty of being an armor tanker. Running ferros and repairers, you'll be able to get similar EHP and speed as a Caldari but no-where near the same kind of regeneration and utility. This is why I get antsy whenever people say "Gal and Cal have the same speed" because it's only true in niche, silly cases where you are basically castrating yourself to suit the argument.