I kind of feel it still does not have a proper place in the game.

Recent changes to H&H really gave troll armor a purpose in that it makes a good transition armor for entering the crypts to obtain the cores so you can make bronze. Before H&H troll armor just seemed a waste of time to me.

But Root armor just does not seem to have any reason to build it. Iron is better for the mountains and you don't need poison resist much outside of the swamps. Not sure if the poison resist stacks with the potion so it is good to wear the mask when doing the oil blobs? Not sure, haven't got that far with it. But it's weak to fire so the plains might not be the best place to use it. It is much easier to get a full set of iron stuff than root stuff. If root had better armor than iron but its bonuses and weaknesses just don't make it worth it beyond using for serpent hunting or going back into the swamp for resources after you are done there... and at that point you may as well use wolf or padded.

They really should come up with a reason to use it, right now it just feels like it is there as an option rather than having its own purpose in progression.

I suppose the best thing about it is if your world really is rough RNG wise for iron crypts and you end up going to a lot of swamps and find no iron but get abominations. In that case it would be logical to make it... certainly you at least want the mask for the poison resist early on.