Let me see if I can clarify Yendor...
If I remember correctly, if you were a dual-class in AD&D (my direct example being Baldur's Gate games), your item restrictions were the strictest set of gear equip-able by both classes. For instance, a fighter could wield almost any weapon and armor to do everything, however druids could only wield blunts and scimitars and could not cast spells if they wore armor above the "leather" class. As a fighter/druid dual-class, you could wear whatever you wanted (fighter), but if you had on heavier armor than leather, you had to swap down to leather or below to cast spells (druid restriction).
Since EQ was heavily influenced by the AD&D ruleset, I am making the assumption that the reason rangers were deemed to be a chain-mail class was because of ties to this AD&D restriction. Or it may be that the roots of the ranger class are more rogue/druid based and since rogues cannot wear armor heavier than chain that the restriction was also maintained for rangers.
Also, I don't know if EQ had the mechanics to be able to code "if armor > chain, then ability_to_cast = off", so they just made the broad designation that they could not wear armor above chain.
Obviously this is all speculation and you are free to agree or disagree as you see fit.
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