If plate carriers are going to be absolute beasts at protecting us, I think they should be changed slightly.
What if you had to attach the plates separately?
You could have it so that a plate could get ruined after saving your life, but the vest is still wearable.
The vest part can still be repaired by sewing kits, and duct tape, but the plate part CANNOT be repaired… once it’s ruined, you have to replace it with a new plate.
This would stop someone from tanking a load of rounds, and then fixing their plate carrier in a jiffy with a leather sewing kit. This always seemed silly to me.
I guess you would have to balance the hoarding of plates by making them huge in the inventory, and heavy too.