Corbridge A Breastplates - to cross or not cross diagonally?

[Marcus Caecilius Avitus]

Fair enough Jim, a bit glib, but the point still stands. Whilst legionaries may have used full arm motion in battle and indeed in building and other tasks, this would ony account for a fraction of the body posture. 95% of the time the plates would be in the rest position, so that's when the wear would take place. Adding the angles on the chest plates it must be close to 60 degrees. :!: this is really going to hammer the hinges.

We know armour was repaired (often as a botch job) and you would expect to do so occassionally. But routine repairs due to a design feature seems unlikely.

I just can't get past this nagging doubt.