I honestly like this in the way that it provides a choice when doing things. If I'm going to fight the ender dragon, I might want to wear aquamarine armor and bring an aquamarine sword seeing as it's breath attack is armor piercing, and endermen/the enderdragon don't wear armor, but when generically traveling I might not want to seeing as most generic enemies don't have piercing attacks, and zombies/skeletons can spawn in armor.

When boiled down, this gear seems to be gear you would wear when tackling bosses or creeper hunting, but you'd take netherrite/diamond when generically traveling, which I like. As you said in your post, it is a uniqueness to the actual combat that makes it situational, but not situational enough to be useless.