Monk: Is going overweight ever worth it?
 

Are penalties to monk AC visible, is it as plain as looking at your character profile and looking at your AC or is are there any hidden losses (e.g. mitigation)?

I don't really see how even with only 2 tink bags and no other bags I can equip items like Barbed Dragonscale Shoulders or Boots without going overweight, does the AC offset the penalty in instances such as these? Should I gun for items like Silver Chitin Wristbands or keep the weight under the limit?

Displayed AC is a number that represents both mitigation and avoidance.

I am assuming the reason the number goes down when you are overweight is due to reduced avoidance.

Generally almost no armor is worth going over the limit.

Weapons, Fungi, and Tinkerer Bags are pretty much always going to be "worth" their weight. Same for resist gear for raids. Other than that with everything else equipped I would stay under the limit.

I ran into this with my monk twink - I spent a while collecting black pantherskin armor, weight reduction bags, weapons etc. but when he has his Wu’s Quivering Staff equipped he’s over the 15lb limit because the stupid thing is so heavy. I basically have to run around completely naked to use 2hb or switch to dual wield with lighter weapons to wear armor at all

Black pantherskin sux. Way too heavy. It is just a "look at me I am rich" gear. Plenty of 0.0 weight stuff out there to use on monk.

Somewhere between 40-50 the weight penalty starts to become relevant, but before then it doesn't super matter. You can safely go a little over for more HP. That said, if you have the plat to buy all these twink items, save it for gear that will be useful all the way to 60 (e.g. tink bags, haste, etc). 1-46 is super fast and easy with minimal twinkage (with fungi it's a straight face roll), so it's a waste to over optimize for those levels. Of the items you mentioned, I'd only consider the dragon boots, since the other options for feet are all pretty weak.

Yeah from 1-50 if you are twinked I wouldn't worry about it. With Fungi, Seahorse Belt, and IFS I could just pick up everything and be at 40+ stones without slowing down my leveling. The AC penalty wasn't an issue. I did those levels solo, and I was getting a level every 2-3 hours.