Regardless of anything else, I think that the blade of the new greatsword is a distinct improvement. The old one appeared to be slightly lopsided, especially in battle.
As for the new lamellar armours, the scales look better than the old ones but the new -40/285 one could do with having some green-coloured materials on it. I really like the combination of earthy green and orange/brown colours on all the others.
I don’t think that the game needs to adhere strictly to late-medieval styles of armour and weaponry. I like it to fuse elements from throughout the entire medieval period, as well as incorporating earlier and later elements that seem like natural precursors/descendants of medieval ones (not to mention heavy doses of mythology and bits of fantasy). “Medieval” is just a term that was posthumously bestowed. Some “renaissance” or “early modern” elements, like gunpowder and firearms, totally changed the nature of warfare and would break the “medieval” feel of the game. But other elements from the 1500s/1600s, like the massive plate armours and hand-to-hand weapons, really just feel like a logical continuation of the “middle ages”.
