Well, I think it's great to have a few "zero-budget Fetts" on the board. By the end of the year, I'll probably have a couple thousand bucks invested in my costume. If I took the time to make more parts myself, and made a few compromises, I'd probably end up spending far less.
It doesn't really matter if your armor is made of linoleum, cardboard, trash cans, etc. if you're happy with the result, and if you spend time on the small details, like weathering.
Zurath, you could get a lot of mileage out of that armor if you weathered it a little. Maybe pick a secondary paint color to show through the scratches, and make some convincing battle damage. Here's a quick and dirty 3D render of a chest plate with your color scheme: