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Gaming armor
I've been a fan of your Toughness for a long time. This plus Edge Protection and new ST-based damage progression make a great combo... but, it adds a lot of computation to combat, which is already teetering on the edge of "too complex".
Glad you like them. Re complexity: Well, the new ST Damage doesn't add or take away anything there. But as for Toughness (Tgh) and EP, yes, like any added combat option, they add complexity – though not as much as "two new armor statistics" would appear.
First, they also do away with existing complexity like flexible armor and Tough Skin. Second, Tgh and EP combine to form DR, so no target will have three protection stats; it'll have DR, plus either additional EP or additional Toughness. Not all three at once.
I suspect you'd get more (or faster) buy-in if these three rules plus a new armor system were better integrated into the core mechanics. That is, rewriting the combat system to make a stronger distinction between the damaging blow (from fists, bullets, arrows, swords, but not poison, disease/death-ray, acid, or fire) and its "damage value", the crushing component, and the wounding from the type of blow (cutting, impaling, etc). That lets you point out where the three forms of DR (DR/EP/T) get applied: subtract DR from damaging blow, subtract Toughness from crushing damage, and subtract EP from extra wounding.
My exact thought when writing up Tgh: "You know, all damage should be rated on an impact component and a damage multiplier. The former would instantly answer questions about penetration, knockback, etc., with no special rules for certain damage types. Both components together would make things like EP and Tgh work easily for all damage types."
So I agree that it'd be an obvious improvement, if one were to rework such basics from scratch.
How does this ties in to a new armor system? Since EP and Toughness take care of that silliness with GURPS flexible armor or tough skin, we no longer need armor with special case values for physical blows (e.g. DR like "2*" or "5/3"), instead we pull all physical protection into a fixed three-value format like "4/0/2" (lorica segmentata) or "1/2/0" (a martial arts padded suit) or "0/0/infiite" (impenetrable magic silk shirt). Impaling attacks halve EP (rounded up).
Are those three values DR/Tgh/EP? I haven't considered *armor* as having Tgh; I'm not sure what that would represent. As an inanimate object, armor doesn't suffer a damage multiplier to begin with, and to any extent that armor absorbs impact, it should also prevent edge penetration (meaning DR not Tgh)... I don't know, I can't think of a meaningful example of armor Tgh. Also, any combination of armor Tgh and EP would have to be converted to DR instead... though I see that's not a problem in your examples, where either Tgh or EP is already 0.
In short: Unless I'm failing to see a good reason for armor Tgh, I rate armor using only DR and EP.
As for your remaining armor suggestions: At quick glance, it all seems a very interesting reworking. I agree that it's nice to have all needed info spelled out in stats, rather than case-by-case footnotes. Polished and tested, it'd make for a good Pyramid or fan site article.
Then there's the weirdness with small piercing doing 0.5x damage and impaling to the limbs doing 1x damage. It's awkward, especially with the Toughness rules. We have to have a way of showing that those aren't deadly but will still hurt. Ok, so if we're redesigning the whole combat mechanic anyways, why don't we adjust HP and damage so no one has to do divide by 2, round off, subtract, etc... we can double (or triple) HP across the board (HP = ST x 2), adjust some basic damages and most damage-type multipliers. Bullets will be the most changed, because we give them low damage dice but high wound multiple. That also takes care of the special case for bullets and knockback since their crushing component is so low it will hardly affect anyone.
I agree, too, that bullets arguably call for better handling. It's an old discussion, and I remain in the old camp of "Give bullets modest basic hits, high damage multipliers, and an armor divisor".
Regarding the x0.5 dam multiplier for small piercing, I too think it's weird... though before saying so with certainty, I'd like to ask the 4e designers what the intent is. Say a small but high-tech bullet were to, an inch before impact, magically sprout a medallion-sized force-field "shield" in front so its damage became crushing. Do the designers say that this flat bullet, intentionally and logically, will inflict more damage than one bullet piercing flesh? (I'm open to the argument.) Or is it just a case of "Yeah, it's not ideal, but we had to reduce damage below that of regular bullets, and those canonically had a x1 multiplier. Not much choice."? I'm curious as to which it is.
Assuming it's not ideal, the triple HP suggestion would be useful, as you say, in avoiding small multipliers. In fact, someone just wrote to me w/ the idea of setting HP to ST x 10. Together with the New Damage Table, that allows something interesting: basic damage becomes ST dice.
... And by that point, the combined ideas above are straying into a serious departure from the existing game. But all are interesting ideas to play with.