[Suicide Junkie]

I believe it should be something like:
EA: Low-end inert.
Centauri/Narn: Middle to high-end inert.
Minbari: Minimum scattering armor
Vorlons & Shadows: All armor in your list, plus racial tech armor.

This would have to be set up in a scenario, of course.

As for a low-tech start, everybody should pretty much walk up the tree.
Get some basic inert armor, and research upgrades to it until that particular race feels it should do more basic research.
At that point jump up into the passive armor techs. Start researching scattering in order to get a return on your investment, and then skip over some of the intermediate armor types on your way to Emissive armor.
How many intermediate steps the race decides to skip will depend on how aggressive they are. Skipping steps is somewhat risky, because you will be stuck using inferior armor until you stop skipping and do some applied armor research.