This is an issue concerning the relative strength of armor and evades vs. high lvl mobs.
I blitz ql 239 missions quite often and have 1078 melee evade and 986 dodge ranged and 978 duck. I use 2 parry sticks, ql 200 and 173. My buffed ac is 5200.
I regularly get hit by aces and real means for 600 - 1100 normal damage and 1700 - 2200 crits (although they rarely rarely crit on me) at full defense. My question is, if the formula is that for every 1000 ac you take 100 less damage, a ql 230 set of armor is hardly going to make you take less damage than a ql 200 set, unless it has some sort of built in absorb shield.
The relativity factor really comes into play the higher you level. Once we can start leveling past lvl 200 and use high lvl Jobe implants or regular implants, even ql 300 armor isn't going to be as uber as most would think. If you had 8k ac it would only make you take 300 less damage than 5k ac.
Maybe I'm wrong on the formula that's used in calculating the damage you take but you have to admit that relativity does play a factor here.
Also, evades do help in avoiding being critted on, but it has to be so fricking high in order for high lvl mobs to miss you on a regular basis, you'd have to have like over 2k evades to really make a difference on mobs lvl 240+.
I'd like you're thoughts. If I'm completely off please let me know. I'm just telling you what I think based on what I think I know (which could be nothing ).