I've written it already in the general feedback thread, but this one here is probably a better place to discuss it:

The movement stat is currently working a bit backwards.
The way it it implemented in 1.0.47, characters that would benefit most from movement (melee fighters), get the least, while chracters that could do better without (mages, rangers) get a lot.
E.g. my fighter had 0.5 (at some point even significantly less until I realized that the particular combination of armor was just too much), while my mage had 2.

Now I can understand the idea that heavy armor will reduce movement, but give you better survivability when being hit, so I guess a certain reduction makes sense.
However, the penalty seems to get quite large fast and there's no way to counter it.
The rush skill is nice, but too limited.
The quick and dirty fix would be to simply reduce the penalty on all the equipment pieces.
A more elegant solution might be to introduce means to offset the penalties:
There's allready an armor ability in the warrior tree - it could be made to reduce the penalty.
On top of it, that also sounds like a good possibility for a talent.
I could also imagine a skill that temporarily boosts movement in combat at the expense of a few AP in one round.

For mages I don't see any reason why their equipment should routinely give a bonus to movement.
I think on average they should stay around 1, excluding some unique magical items of course.

Rangers/Thieves might benefit from good movement when leveled as a light and fast melee character.
I think that for such chars good movement makes the most sense, but again I wouldn't give huge boni through equipment alone but rather through abilities and talents