I'm right around level 35 and just realized that the armor drops are significantly better. The leather armor and the combat armor is now considerably better quality. I'm assuming that they are now sturdy, but that classification is not displayed when I'm picking items up. I think it gets buried under the Shadowed, Enameled, or any other modifiers to the armor. I am now wondering when they started dropping.

Regular, Sturdy and Heavy are what i've seen so far. they look a little more robust on characters too. but telling what is what, you need to look at the stats to tell.

yeah a bit annoying when it has mods on it and you cant tell if you want to loot it cause its that heavy peice you been looking for or not.