Yeah, I don't get why all the hate for the basic armored vest in the BBB. It says it conceals nicely underneath any worn clothing and it's far superior to all the 'tailored' armor suits. If you get it with softweave then it's suitable even for body 2 characters.
Nothings stopping you from dropping 5000 on a nice suit afterwards either if it's the look for money you're after.
I actually like softweave and FFBA... not because it helps the troll tank (it does... but really in raw numbers terms not a lot... but for low body non-tank characters they're the ONLY ways to get reasonably significant amounts of armor. Not so much that light pistol isn't still a threat (~12 dice soak... 4 base damage on Light pistol... 1 net to hit at least... means 1+ damage still comes through per hit).... but that they won't die instantly as soon as the SMG's and AR's start coming out to play. Put another way, those extra 3-5 dice of armor mean a lot more to someone who only has 3-6 points to start with than someone already packing 12+ points and a high body score to match.