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wit that piece as a starter point, I am attempting for the third time to create a "suit" of armor for some fictional characters of mine. Their every day armor consists of a hard shell tunic/pants getup with the leg/hip parts articulated. The materials used are a 25th century version of ceramic stopping most everything short of an anti-tank round. These are worn in a non-battlefield environment where protection from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons is indicated.

there is where the trouble begins.

my last attempt at this I found the armor deforming with posing like regular cloths.

How do I go about keeping stiff parts stiff?

There are three ways to map the MakeHuman skin to a piece of "clothing".
From your description, you probably want to use (2), the three vertex method.
These methods are all done with the vertex groups that are named the same between the clothing and the human.

(1) Normal: On the human side, all the vertices beneath the clothing are assigned to the human vertex group.
The clothing moves like a cloth, its position and size in space calculated from the nearest human vertices.
This method allows the clothing to flex and adapt to different human sizes and positions.

(2) Rigid: On the human side, only three vertices are assigned to the human vertex group.
The clothing moves like a rigid piece, its position and size in space calculated from the three vertices.
This method still somewhat adapts to different human sizes, but the "clothing" does not bend or fold.

(3) Solid: On the human side, only a single vertex is assigned to the human vertex group.
The clothing moves like a solid piece, its position in space calculated from the single vertex.
This method does not adapt to changing human sizes and the "clothing" does not bend or fold.