So, Skyrim's out 11/11/11

[Concillian]

So, I couldn't help myself in looking up some armor mechanics. Some game mechanics spoilers are coming.

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Armor has a cap at 567 rating.  Cap can be reached easily in heavy armor and without too much effort in light armor if you're a smith... even without a shield.
So anyone who likes to do some min / maxing but also cares about aesthetics doesn't have to feel compelled to wear the "best armor" if they're already over the cap.

Also "time to live" has accelerating return with armor value.  TTL over wearing no armor doesn't hit 2x (50% damage reduction) until you have over 300 armor (~320).  But additional armor starts dramatically increasing TTL:   3x  @ ~440, 4x @ ~520 and 5x at cap of 567, so going from 100 to 150 armor is much, much less beneficial than going from 500 to 550 armor.  It takes ~320 armor to get half reduction but the next half reduction comes with only 200 more armor.

Without cheese you can cap out dragonscale armor with max armor perks and a single decent +x% smithing item if you have the dragonscale smith perk and all the light armor +% perks.  A couple more +x% smithing items can apparently cap out elven armor.  Since elven is reachable with only 2 smithing perks, it's quite possibly the "best" armor choice in the long run from a pure stats standpoint.  Since almost any armor in the game can hit the armor cap, you can choose whatever you like aesthetically and still cap out damage reduction.  Armors without smithing perks are the notable exception (leather, studded, hide, and iron).  Others like scale, elven, glass, all the heavy armors are all fairly easy to cap if you get the smithing perk for that armor type and all the +% armor perks in your armor tree.