I wish I could carry the Imperial Legion armour for the entire game. But it gets redundant. It looks beast on my Argonian.
you can, if you play 1h + shield.... just make it legendary.
i play with the steelplate armor smithed up to legendary. lvl 41, no problems. i'm playing on adept in the moment, but get the feeling to switch up to expert, because even with the steelplate it's pretty easy.