I played a warrior on live from Velious to The Buried Sea, but didn't hit the raiding scene until PoP.

And yes, it was always an AC vs. HP battle among tank classes (Usually the AC battle fought by SKs, mostly cause it was useless for them to use shields come OoW with the 2.0s)

But it's really all a personal preference. I played the HP game. But with disc timers and stuff, depending on the fights, when my Def. was going to drop I was always ready to switch up my weapons and toss in a shield for the extra AC (Go go bandiler lol), Tallon Zek in time is a good example of such an occasion.

And honestly, if your worry about threat (Which is a huge issue with warriors currently) max out stam, toss the rest in Dex to up your proc chance and twink your toon up with 2 shards :D

I'm a paladin, though, Evilmog (but thanks for the info)