Best average armour?

[spaceviking]

It is commonly held that best pre modern amour was the Milanese (or similar) plate armour; However given the massive cost of these suits these were reserved only for the best and or wealthiest soldiers.
What I am wondering is of any major empire whose armour for the average solider was the best? Since the term average is ambiguous I am going to say the level of amour worn by at least 50% of an infantry force, not counting mercenaries and auxiliaries. Also because in many armies soldiers were expected to procure their own armour this will be based on typical kit of the rank and file soldier.

I would expect that best armour for the average solider was the kit of Roman Soldiers around 200 AD, with the Lorica segmentata. Though I am not sure how widespread it was or how the metal quality stacks up to later periods.

[Simon_Jester]

This is impossible to quantify. Any conclusive answer to this question will be a stupid answer. Here's a list of problems with the question:

1) We can't test different types of historical armor effectively. In many cases we don't even know the details of how they were made.
2) There was a dearth of modern industry in ancient times, so very few soldiers were ever equipped with any kind of "mass-produced" armor. You can't point to the armor worn by ten thosuand men and assume that all those soldiers had armor of equal quality, weight, and durability.
3) Most historical armies did not supply that much armor to their soldiers- at least, not heavy metallic protection, which was very expensive.
4) It may even depend on how you define "soldiers." Is a feudal warlord with his own band of followers and enough personal wealth to have expensive equipment a "soldier?" What about a feudal levy whose equipment is rather... limited? What about a mercenary, who is part of a unit that probably equips themselves with whatever they please?
5) Like almost everything else in the world, armor is designed to deal with specific threats. Different kinds of armor perform differently against different threats. Armor that is very useful against one kind of enemy, and their weapons, might fail badly if you wear it on a different battlefield against a different enemy. So is the "best" armor the armor which was best suited to dealing with threats it actually faced? Or the best against some kind of average of all weapons in the world, including ones that no one who made the armor had ever heard of?

[Thanas]

This can only be answered in relative terms - aka how much of an advantage did they have over period armies?

Then you have to consider the following:
- Romans
- Saracen armies of the 7th centuries
- Franco-German armies of the carolingian times
- Byzantine armies up to the end of the 11th century
- French cavalry and Spanish infantry in the 16th century (in fact, I'd say the armor worn by the French gendarmes is probably the best armor in terms of sheer protection)


However, there was only one Empire which consistently supplied nearly all of its front units with armor and that were the Romans.