Preston Henson

Not to necropost but the easy way, everyone is missing here, to make this work; have the smersh contain a slot for an armor vest. Make it so you can only equip one without pouches attached (or with the pouches empty, in the case of the press vest) and bam, you have armor under LBE with some balance. Make it so that you have the stamina penalty of both vests at once and there's not real reason it couldn't be done or that it would be unbalanced