By the time I get to Yagluth and me and the homies are wrapping up the endgame, everyone is wearing padded armor with a lox cape. The only exception to this is troll leather, which is the only lower-tier armor which offers some sort of bonus. Because there aren't that significant of weight differences between armors, there's almost no reason to lug around your old bronze or iron set when you've got something that protects way more.
Honestly, my favorite looking armor in the game is the regular leather, and it bums me out that it's a death sentence to wear it past the swamps. I don't think these lower-tier armors need protection buffs; I understand that leather armor shouldn't be able to take a smack from a fuling berserker and only lose 20 health. It would be really cool, however, if all sets of armor had set bonuses like the troll leather. Either this or some sort of minor penalties with the heavier armors (movement penalties or the weight of the armor is increased), but I definitely lean more towards buffing the lower armors.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/son6p4/i_wish_there_were_more_incentives_to_use/
