I am not sure it makes sense to have advies finding Armour that is not unique. Would a lord really put on Armour that some peasant found? They would instead find a famous armoury to make the armour. You could have instead, a "Weaponsmith" (a "Sage" type of character) could roam around visiting weapon/armour smiths and nobles would be able to buy weapons/armour from them, as well as have them repaired.
I think needing to have an item repaired would be good. Perhaps instead of it disappearing when it drops to 0%, it could instead just stop doing anything for the character. The character would just have it packed away until he/she found the weaponsmith again.
