during levelling, and specially early game armour rating itself is also a good stat/valuable upgrade consideration, and early levels armour types increase rapidly (hence the frequent upgrades too)
so as long as your resists doesnt’ get decimated, or you lose vital stats to equip an item (physique/cunning/spirit on ex and armour slot enabling you to wear other armours or weapons), then gaining an amount of armour for otherwise status quo or slight drop in other stat can be totally fine/still a potential upgrade
Dragon did this
i personally rank health a bit higher but in general i think his suggestions are rock solid, also has some good “on avg” component suggestions
if you then still feel like cheesing the game a bit you can look up MIs for your build and target some specific items to give you certain and direct boosts, or just minimum guaranteed base stats ofc