Are the vests worth buying?

[Neonetik]

I'm playing on normal difficulty. I did look up some info on them once I saw em in the shop. From what I gather, they take up an inventory slot (something I'm already struggling with considering the tiny amount of space), and their overall usefulness seems to be almost entirely up to debate. Are either of them worth spending an inventory slot on? Either the melee OR the bullet one?

Honestly, it feels like it may just be more worth it to dump that 10k that I would spend on a vest into improving my weapons. I've got Chris with a pistol and shotgun, and Sheva with a SMG and rifle. All I've upgraded so far has been the crit rate on the pistol (just got it to max, and I just got to 2-2 I believe), and that's working out so far (no other upgrades on anything yet), but I also feel my lack of general damage may potentially be an issue down the line. That said, ammo seems to be pretty damn plentiful in this game, so that might not be a problem either.

So yeah, what's the consensus? Are both vests equally good? Does it not matter? Is it worth the slot? Etc. I'm planning on sticking with first weapon of every kind (not just to unlock the new stuff, but also because most of it is genuinely quite excellent, judging by my research), in case that makes any sort of difference.

Might wanna upgrade Shevas SMG capacity to possibly free up some inventory space as well. I assume that's a thing people do?

Edit: Oh, and what about the stun-rod? Curious about that too.

Cheers.

[Endus Bloodspell]

a large text for a simple quest, i will be directly to point
you are noob? yes? so you use the vest to take less damage ( good to use in Veteran or Professional )

you are noob? no? so it's not so important to use it

about the stun-rod, he can kill instantly the large head majinis with one hit, i love to use it in battle.

[James.Havoc]

If you ever gonna go for Professional difficulty, dont bother with the melee vest. It will prevent you from very minor damages. Every other hit will instantly bring you down to critical state.
Bulletproof on the other hand can be a life saver, since it will prevent you from getting downed by a single arrow/crossbowbolt. It will still hit hard, but you wont be in critical condition.

As for the other difficulties, it depends on how well you are doing. At Veteran, the bulletproof vest can become very usefull, once the enemies start using rifles, while the melee vest can make later encounters against some bosses a little easier.

All I've upgraded so far has been the crit rate on the pistol (just got it to max, and I just got to 2-2 I believe), and that's working out so far...

Go for capacity. The "starter"- guns (M92F, Ithaca, S75, Vz61) can get huge magazines which will save a lot of space in the inventory on the long run.

Might wanna upgrade Shevas SMG capacity to possibly free up some inventory space as well. I assume that's a thing people do?

Exactly this. Atleast until now.