My Roderick was wearing some level 5 bracers because they gave +1 One Handed (and +1 Lockpicking, which I never used).
Were there bracers with better base armor? Yes.
Did I care enough to sacrifice 10% of my damage? No.
If you want to min/max your skill points then you're probably going to have to make some sacrifices elsewhere. Either that or do what I did with my Scarlet - if you get a really awesome piece of gear which gives bonuses you don't need, consider speccing into those bonuses. I turned my pure mage into a mage/rogue hybrid, and it worked out fine.
