I personally don’t like the weight modifiers on items (both with Affixes as well as Base Stat variety). Which enables you to wear plate without adequate investment.
The idea about tying offensive Affixes more to Cloth/Leather and Defense more to Mesh/Plate is pretty great.
Would pretty decisively ensure, that you have to sacrifice offense for defense.
I also think DR could use a mix of % based and flat calculation.
→ Plate is best vs really heavy hits (that could be dodged), and even upgraded cloth works well vs smaller hits