Shields & Armour --- what's the point?

[Jon Brave]

All interesting, but before we lose the point:

* Aren't phased shields a bad "upgrade" for normals? Don't you find you cannot afford to use "Hide Obsoletes" or "Upgrade" if you accidentally research them, which is ?

* Armour: I can see this area is complicated; other Posts seem to think emissive, at least, is broken, non-modded. Persuade me the horrendous drop in size/damage + vastly increased cost is worth it...

I could just do with clarification on how these work. For instance, is 75 phased shields *really* pointless compared to 300 normals against most weapons?