Banded versus bronze - is bronze worth the plat / weight?

[Soothsayer]

Given the opaque nature of armor class in EQ, I'm struggling to determine if I should blow some plat on bronze on my warrior or hold out for drops while wearing banded. I'm using several bronze pieces from the knight card quest (breastplate, helm, shoulders, mask) but the rest is mostly banded.

Would it noticeably increase my survivability to get more bronze pieces or should I save up for things like magic weapons and good accessories while waiting for bronze to simply drop?