Here is another crappy idea from yours truly:
I remember chadz often saying that he didnt wan't everyone using the same items, but he wanted people to customize their characters and have their own, individual chars.
Lots of people have done this by following a certain look. You get Middle Eastern Spearmen, Viking Axethrowers, Weeaboo Samurais and all that crap.
These are all fine, but my look, the knights, is extremely hard to do. The gauntlets alone cost a fortune to maintain, not to mention the Gothic Plate with Bevor and the Charger.
Thats why I'm suggesting that when you buy a piece of armor or a horse you get to choose if it should be light, medium heavy. This can also be chosen once for all the armor one possesses.
Having a light armor would just about half the requirements, weight, stats and upkeep cost. A medium armor would be 3/4 and a heavy would remain the same way it is now.
That way you could basically have people look like whatever they want without them being overpowered or costing a shitload.
An addendum would be allowing the changing from one to the other whenever the player wants. For example, in an armor, one could choose to leave certain parts of the armor away, thus reducing weight and upkeep cost as well as protection. On a horse, you could remove a certain amount of armor.