I would also have to agree with the above statement. I'm just not going to put much of any effort into acquiring, or get very attached to, things that are reasonably easy to loose and require somewhat frequent repair that isn't terribly reliable.
If it were almost impossible to lose unique items and easy to repair them (and rarer to need to do so), I would certainly have a much greater interest in acquiring them, and actually give advies quests to find me neat ones, and write RPs about the ones I do own, instead of just sometimes buying them if an advie comes to me with one, and then pretty much ignoring it (and maybe caring enough to get it repaired).
In regards to the original armor idea, while I think perhaps I'd prefer to see more done with unique items first, I generally like it. Mostly because I can spend that money, and wouldn't mind showing it off (and getting wounded less). Though it's a shame that my character who could spend 10k gold (yes, I have a character with over 10k gold on them) on such a thing is a priest and would find it somewhat useless . . . something for non-warriors might be nice, too.
