Especially if you have a biggus dickus. 
From the description, lorica segmentada sounds like the sperior armor.
So why was it abandoned? Was there a lack of skilled smiths in the 2nd century?
Or was it the general decay of the Roman Army that dictated more primative gear?
Well, mail is dead easy to make. I could teach you in about 20 minutes. So local production could be up and running with mostly unskilled workers fairly quickly after supply lines broke down.
Granted, it takes longer then the Seg (8 hours by a skilled armourer/30 hours by a beginner, versus 100 hours either way for the Hamata). However, there was a surplus of labor back then, so that won’t have been any great issue.
Mail is also more one-size-fits-all than bands or any sort of plate. Banded armor has to be fitted to the wearer, but chainmail just sort of drapes over any body shape. So if a mail-clad soldier died, someone else could go on wearing his old armor, but if a banded-clad soldier died, it might not be worth the trouble to re-fit it.
Anecdotally, I can also add that although I’ve never worn any real armor, fake cardboard lorica segmentata is a heck of a lot more comfortable than fake cardboard plate. The flexibility also gives it durability: Even doing flips in the cardboard lorica, it just flexed and stayed undamaged.
Does quality of the metal make a difference in choosing mail or banded armor?
Not a historian but knew one (or someone clamining to be one).
He said Lorica segmentata was superior but more expensive which is why it was abandoned. Also something about the enemies they fought earlier in the Republic/Empire were more sensitive to quality differences and so few could beat many but later on you needed more boots (or sandals) in the field as the enemies were more on equal terms. (barbarians who learned under the Romans and such).
Watch it! Still a few crosses left.
BTW, I highly recommend this book, written as if it were a guide for a new recruit to Rome’s storied legions: http://www.amazon.com/Legionary-Soldiers-Unofficial-Manual-Manuals/dp/0500251517/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315853587&sr=1-1
Minor nitpick – there are no “windmills” per se in the Netherlands. What you’re no doubt thinking of are called “windmolen”.
Look, I know you’re going to keep tilting at them (and, please, do maintain the proper 12º angle from the perpendicular when doing so). But make sure you use the perfect word, or the Dutch Masters will give you a Dutch Rub right on your Little Dutch Boy.
Huh? Since when is** Alessan **dutch?
I second this recommendation. The book is full of good stuff, like this excerpt from the chapter entitled “People Who Will Want to Kill You”:
(Emphasis mine.)
Someone was hitting you with turnips?
No. People from Sweden, who were upset about something or other, were hitting me with a variety of blunt objects. Although we did eat turnips at that same occasion, which could be argued as a rather interesting case of cannibalism.
Oh. *By *angry Swedes. That’s somewhat less entertaining than the idea you were being hit *with *angry Swedes. Some sort of catapult involved perhaps, or maybe a drunk Finn (yes, I know, pleonasm)…
I better make it up to you. Stories involving catapults…hmm.
Well, we once got attacked by shell shocked swans after firing a catapult at their young. Damnedest thing I ever saw - the daddy swan (which is what we city people call them - I’m sure male swans have a name) attacked our glass veranda door, scratched a car to hell, and shat several tons of guano all over the place. We had to line up five big guys in full gear, shields and all, to drive them off. Those birds are scary. We didn’t even do it on purpose, let alone hit them.
Drunk Finns have never, in any shape, form or fashion, bothered me whatsoever, mores the pity in my single days. Damn geeky guys, they’re always gentlemen.
A cob, you troglodyte
If you’ve never had an encounter with a drunk mad raving Finn in a berserker frenzy, preferably dressed in merely a far too small towel and brandishing a birch branch in one hand and a bottle of Miintu in the other, I sympathize. Though harrowing, the experience is memorable.
Aside from what everybody else has said, “mail” is an equally inadequate term since the Romans evidently felt themselves too special to learn and use English.