Immersion breakers

[Commissar Pancakes]

It probably allowed maybe 1 out of 12 of my rookies shot to survive with a nearly fatal wound (which I was lucky to beeline for medkits, or else that rookie was toast...).

[Dix]

Armour progression was all to the good - heavy flying armour definitely increased your squads chances. I really like your squad being able to hit the aliens regularly, but our weapons only just cutting it.
It's a good immersion builder for me.
It also adds the feeling of inferiority that so motivates and enlivens our troops .

[Safe-Keeper]

They're fine as they are. Yes, it's an immersion breaker, but it's also a good gameplay feature, in that it strongly encourages you to keep your guys alive and build a squad of elite soldiers.

The real problem of these soldiers is that they die from 1-2 hits even in initial armor

Which is IMHO both a good gameplay mechanic, realistic, and true to the X-Com games, in which soldiers without uniform died when hit 99% of the time, and all the initial uniform did was basically give them a chance to survive, even if they still often lost consciousness.

Surrounded by games in which people take a whole volley of shots to kill, I actually like this setup. The initial armour, in my opinion, should offer little additional protection -- later armour setups can be made to absorb fire better.

[Belmakor]

They're fine as they are. Yes, it's an immersion breaker, but it's also a good gameplay feature, in that it strongly encourages you to keep your guys alive and build a squad of elite soldiers.

Which is IMHO both a good gameplay mechanic, realistic, and true to the X-Com games, in which soldiers without uniform died when hit 99% of the time, and all the initial uniform did was basically give them a chance to survive, even if they still often lost consciousness.

Surrounded by games in which people take a whole volley of shots to kill, I actually like this setup. The initial armour, in my opinion, should offer little additional protection -- later armour setups can be made to absorb fire better.

I agree with this. I think that the starting armour should offer only projectile protection. You should have to research an armour that is designed to offer even minimal protection against plamsa weapons. Wouldn't need to be manufactured, just replace the stats of Jackal armour to represent the fact your scientists have found a new way of protecting against plasma. Kevlar isn't very good at dissipating heat after all.

As it stands, my guy can still storm a UFO with two reptillians inside, take a single reaction fire shot into the Jackal armour and then throw a grenade killing both.

I'd rather this ability was something that had to be earned only after losing several soliders to plasma fire in the first few missions.