You're about as wrong as you can be here. The AC & Res of magical items are ALWAYS dependant upon your aptitude.satanicusmaximu wrote:Machined plate and Electro armour are more tehcnical than Elite plate, they are not merely steel, the game reflects this through penalising those with insufficient aptitude with less effective armour.
It make perfect sense for a technically apt character to be better with some tech armours over others, in the case of Machined plate and Electro armour, who is more likely to understand the intricate workings of Machined plate and Electro armour than someone learned in the related fields of science? Perhaps Electro armour needs to be properly calibrated before donning it and one needs to be a veritable electrician to do so, perhaps one with a fundamental understanding of how a machine moves is better able to move his Machined plate into a defensive stance than a mere layman. The idea of a world with magic is incomprehensable enough without throwing a healthy dose of technology in there but hey... anythings possible.
If Dark helms AC and DR did vary the variables would be stated in parenthesis as with other magical items, the things that are effected by aptitude on the Dark helm are how much magical aptitude it adds and how much alignment it reduces.
It also makes no difference between "more" and "less" tech or magic items. Either they are, or they aren't.