this is an item that isnt stolen and becomes something that has to be stolen after its dropped by the person I tried to give it to
something even stupider is that I dont want them to wear this armor I just want them to carry this 40 pound thing that I just found that I can sell for 1000's - even stupider then that is that ed-e who cant even wear any armor cant carry anything to do with a faction - this is lame as hell
You could give them 40 pounds worth of other stuff to make room in your inventory for the armor. Or, if you are on PC you can add a mod called "Phalanx", it allows multiple followers if you choose that option, but one handy thing this mod adds is that ED-E and Rex can carry faction armor. I use this mod and I have not experienced any issues with it. However it does not solve the 'stealing' issue.