I guess I have a hard time believing that the hard cap for AC is 170. I'm pretty sure Kanras implemented the Kahvok post and made 289 the hard cap for melee classes, although whether or not this is classic is of course up for debate.
Does anyone have links to some steel warrior tests of AC? The best I can find is
http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum...hread.php?t=13 which certainly seems to match this.