I also like to know if the proposed shield fix, whereby the bonus is transferred from shield to armour, works with armour upgrades??

Some have stated that armour upgrades are kind of hardcoded and linked to how they appear on the battlefield. For instance, padded gives 4 armour regardless of the actual numbers displayed in the unit scroll. If this is the case then surely giving a massive armour boost is going to be completely negated as soon as the unit's armour level is upgraded.