If you ask US Army LRS what type of missions they do in Afghanistan, they will give you answer - recce. Overt recce in Hummwees, more like kind of demonstrative overwatch. Only very few units dare to ditch body armour (one mission mentioned in "No Easy Day" - good book) including SOF units. If they go like: "OK donīt wear it, but if you get killed, your family probably gets no money" what you gonna do?

Just for adding a bit of (ironic) fun to this sad thread:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X6HnOA88vw
(end of the video is relevant to our discussed problem)