I think one of the easiest way to balance the game would be to apply to plate armor acquired from bodies or through treasure a (huge) penalty to stats, through it not being tailored to yourself. For other kind of armors the penalty would be lower. Not only such a system would be suitably realistic, but, tied to a good increase in the cost of armor in shops it would resolve a lot of issues in the balancing of the game.
It shouldn’t be too difficult for WH to implement such a system and doing so would still enable people to use plate armor if they want to since the beginning, but with reduced efficacy, and it would be much faster than changing design completely so as to totally alter enemy composition and/or treasure access. In this way there would be progression in the game as to acquire the strongest armor is not just a matter of treasure hunting or knocking out a wandering knight, but it requires time and work (naturally if you then tie such a system to a reworked economy so that money is not so easy to come by it’s even better).
What do people think? I seem to remember someone else suggesting the same thing a while ago so it seems that I’m not alone in believing this a wonderful solution, even because it respects realism while being easy to implement.