Oh for-- I’ll just fix that goddang UESP wiki myself, if even Josh Strife Hayes is gonna call horse armor “cosmetic.” It is mechanical. It makes your horse die less. There’s just no functional difference between styles.

That word snuck in circa Christmas 2015. That’s late enough that someone should’ve known better.

Pay to win is ok. But being OP beyond the capacity of non-paying players and deliberately making life difficult for non-paying players is ugly.