Didn't the prime ingredient in most things' final prices come from the work hours skilled craftsmen needed to put into the production process ? AFAIK that was always a prime reason mail was so darn expensive, even if actually joining the darn links was largely just repetitive menial labour. Keeping that in mind, logically if segmentata was faster to make then the main thing that'd have kept it meaningfully more expensive would have been the need for more skilled labour, which tends to be harder to come by and generally more expensive.

Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
Segmentata is actually better at absorbing blunt trauma that mail but worse when dealing with missiles. The latter is probably due to the fact that, unlike mail, segmentata presents a rigid target to piece where mail + padded leather cushions the impact somewhat.
This does not seem to stand up to what I know of armour. Logically, much like scale does, the smooth solid surface of the segmentata should primarily present something for incoming thingies to glance off of, nevermind now the impact-diffusion effect of the overlapping lames. Plus it's not like it would have been worn without some pretty decent padding underneath either; didn't the Romans have a standard-pattern garment for the job ?

The problems mail has with pointy stuff come from the fact the point is practically certain to slip into a single ring, from where it can try to burst it from the inside and thus open the way for penetrating deeper. True to form armour-piercing arrowheads designed against mail have a distinctly needle-like appereance, for example. All said and done, mail isn't really at its best against pointy stuff which is doubtless one reason the "overlapping bits" design philospohy seems to have been somewhat dominant in archery-crazy parts of the world, even when the construction of mail was well known and mastered.