I was wearing my remnants power armour and I noticed something, that big ugly Quasimodo shoulder piece doesn't do anything and without it the suit would be quite sleek and I imagine more flexible, indeed the same could be said of all the in game power armour's shoulder pieces and I just don't know why.

I love the shoulder pauldrons, they work as shoulder protectors and they look intimidating.

A design matter, Fallout power armors aren't very practical (all of them have completely useless shoulder pads, for one).

IMO the Hellfire armor is the only power armor with somewhat realistic proportions. It has very minimalistic features.

It's basically a full plate armor... what'd you expect?

I'd honestly love to see an attempt to create 'light' power armor designed to make the user faster rather than stronger in the fallout 'verse. I imagine it would still have pauldrons, but they'd be much more 'lean' in design, in keeping with a 'slimmed down' version of the Raygun Gothic look of Fallout technology. I know the design team wanted to put a new power armor in OWB but Bethesda nixed it, I wonder if it was going to be anything like this.

To be able to raise my arms over my head.

One word: Intimidation.

You gonna be intimidated by a guy in slimmed down armor, or a guy whose armor is huge, bulky, and lore-wise, makes him a literal walking tank?

Its cool, i prefer how it made you bigger in fo2 now that was intimidating along with miniguns..