No its a sliding scale of compromises and risk tollerance.
The point of rifle plates is to protect a few vital organs that are almost always fatal when hit with a rifle. Soft armor covers a much larger area as all your orgsns are vital, you have blood vessels and arteries that will kill you if you get it.
You obviously cant wear 500 lbs of armor and opperate.
At the same time , running minimalist gear is fucking retarded unless you have a handfull of SOCM medics and docs on your team, assets of the us millitary, and advanced care. You will see Most SWAT teams use heavy, maximum coverage armor despite being able to pick where they fight, having medics on site and assets to get them to trauam centers fast.
For you me or anyone else we have a different risk profile and expectation of care. For some that live out in bum fuck egypt, a wound could be fatal that would be easily survivable in a major metro.
The point of body armor is to keep you alive. You need to think about the logistics and realistic scenerios , make body armor choices based on that.
Many of men wearing wiz bang plate carriers have still died to upper body hits even with great advaced imediate care. They need to be able to manuever with lots of gear which is probally differant than a civilian in a defensive sitiation.
