Was the leather muscled curiass of the later times sexier?

[Ironhand]

Yes, it is a subject very well covered. The search function will definately help you.

Personally I'm of the school of thinking that the leather cuirass is more of a Hollywood/reenactorism using a few scant unclear references to support it. Leather is only effective armour when thick enough to become inflexible. Its ends up about as heavy as metal armour without as much protection and is bulkier because of being thicker. Plus I really don't see the novelty of replicating the cuirass in leather either. They weren't any more primitive in skills and if you wanted to wear something with symbolism to the past you could wear metal armour closer in form and function, not making a half assed poor quality version somewhat similar. Lets face it if you're high enough ranking that you want custom armour remniscent of past designs then you can probably afford to do it to the exact specs you want. Now leather lamellar, that is a different story and much more probable if they used leather armour of any type as more than arming gear and supplementary defenses.