But if you increased some items armor pens in game this could make up for that but at that point it seems redundant to change both.

Max armor changed to 230% worries me, had a mode that didnt max the armor cap and anything over 200% could be nearly immune to damage depending of armor pen of attack. and since more armor pen is less then 45% meant that armor was too protective, then again helmets by vanilla only usually give about a 7.5% of actually protecting, and another 7.5% of just having the pawn Brain damaged.....yeah that is the average % your getting in vanilla with a good protective POWER ARMOR helmet......end game......against most weapons.