The only possible counter-evidence, or at least the one snippet which has been thus proffered, is the "polished vambrace" with which Imrahil discovers that Eowyn is still alive.
That said, there was a considerable period during the Age of Mail when men would augment a hauberk with bits of solid plate, usually at the elbows (couters) and knees (poleyns). And since the mail-wearing Rohirrim especially valued "coats of bright rings out of the Southlands" (meaning Gondor); since Pippin's Citadel Guard armor was mail, and Denethor wore mail under his robes, it appears that Gondor just as Rohan wore mail (in fact, if Gondor made plate, surely the Rohirrim would have been eager to import it; for that matter, if the smelting technology existed in Gondor the Rohirrim and the Dwarves would have swiftly adopted it).
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it.
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