what do you find to be the best light armours? for both looks and effectiveness, and the role playing behind your choice of light armour (if there is one)

Elven looks good and has a pretty good rating. Dragonscale has the best rating and looks fairly good except for the helmet. My usual go-to light armor is scaled armor with leather bracers and vampire boots.

Edit: I generally use elven on elves and maybe bretons. Dragonscale is mostly end-game material. Scaled is good for just about any light armored character.

I hate how every light armor is either too platy (elven, glass, dragonscale) or looks too "barbaric" (hide, studded and scaled). There's no chainmail or a mix of steel and leather. I think we needed more armors like light DG and light chitin

Light Dawnguard Armor is my fav by far. (without helm) It looks realistic and cool. I'm wearing DG armor and a dragon priest mask and make my char fantastically cool