The leather jacket (if treated well) will outlast these other 'scraggy' cloth jackets by years and years. Therefore it is better value for money for us.
Judging by the age of some of the RAF (or ex-RAF) jackets I've seen, I'm not sure that applies. I've binned a very good G-1 leather jacket after about 8 years, my Mk.3 is much older than that and still looks pretty much good as new.
Putting a radio, or anything else that is hard and a little bulky, just to the right of my left nipple isn't a good idea, IMO. That's right where the shoulder harness goes
Fair comment, and I can see Ron's point about putting such a pocket under the arm - but would mention that any pocket that is well designed should be totally unintrusive if you choose to put nothing in it.
(Plus being a Brit of Northern birth and slowly receding hairline, I like a gun pocket on my non-flying jackets as somewhere to put a folded cloth cap.)
Genghis - As an aside have you tried the silk inners with cape leather gloves? It makes an amazing difference
I confess not, but to be honest stopped wearing them some years ago. I wear the slightly thicker Luftwaffe gloves normally, and step up to padded gloves in a truly thicker cockpit, then add inners to those. Just my personal preference there - I've never really found the cape leather gloves ideal in anything but a FJ. But, this is drifting severely off-topic - other than to mention that any flying jacket must have somewhere to put your gloves when not wearing them.
G