Imho it's a step in the right direction. The next step would be to make all guns 1 hit kill on unarmored targets, to make the armor meaningful again. I think that would be a good compromise where you don't feel like you have to have armor to compete, because it's still pretty weak, but at least there are some situations where you might be happy if you bought the armor (namely all the time between the first hit you take and the next hit you take, because that's what you'd get in return for buying a vest).
I've played a few rounds now without armor, and I have had more than one engagement where I took a hit and then killed the attacker. Once that even was a situation where I was unaware of the other player. He snuck up on me with a pistol, shot at me and hit me once, and I turned around and killed him. If I had been wearing armor, ok. But without armor I think this is bad, and I'm sure the guy that I shot would agree. After all he had every advantage on his side. He made no tactical mistake, his aim just wasn't good enough to "out-dps-me". I think he was even wearing armor, but I didn't stop to check fo sure. Might have been a carrier vest.