I am still a relatively new player, so I do not know all of the balances this game has been in before the current version. However it appears that many items have been nerfed. Cata seems to be a relatively easy game if played cautiously, especially if one is experienced with more serious roguelikes like Nethack. However the nerfs that I am seeing between the wiki version and the current 0.B seem somewhat severe.
This may make the game more challenging but it detracts from variety harshly.
I only today replaced the combat knife that I found in the second house I looted, the same leather armor I made after the first month and overall have not had much reason to change up my starting equipment. The forged sword, for an item that has as many skill, material and tool requirements as it does, it is a worse weapon than the combat knife. I found a suit of SWAT armor that is allegedly kevlar plated and it is significantly worse than a suit of literal patchwork armor. Comparing the statistics on those two items it would appear whoever made these changes just halved the values for them, even though that makes them garbage items.
The SWAT Armor would only be useful to a very new character as its stats are right now and even then only until it is replaced by craftable gear.
