For the sake of debate:
Yes, but you are only going to have a tiny fraction of armor if you don't research the chainmail or plate techs, so moving the shield to the weapons techs really isn't going to provide much of an advantage.
So your argument is that shields offer so little of an advantage, they can be put anywhere? Seems like you are trying to avoid researching Armor and Plate. I smell a politician. The Armor techs are separate later on so that you can't get good attack and good defense from the same tech and then just write off the military techs.
If you go "No Armor" you lose access to the chainmail and plate armor techs. You can't research it at all, you can't make them for soldiers or heroes. It's a big penalty. I think it's still a big penalty if they would now get access to the last two shields and I could have more flexibilty in my faction creation.
The no armor penalty gives you an extra faction creation point. That is hugely valuable and is my argument for needing all the armor techs to contain all the armor. You shouldn't be able to use armor if you chose not to in exchange for something else. It makes the faction choices less meaningful. For example, I love that the special Gilden shield is only usable by Iron Golems, which gives them no towershield in the late game. It makes them feel unique, using a one-handed maul and kiteshield. I don't want to lose that.
