Well yesterday I drove down to the Revzilla store in Philly. Revzilla customer service is top knotch and they are very knowledgeable about all the products they offer. I tried on and /or looked over several different high end jackets. Some of the criteria I considerd essential were removable Gor-tex membrane (reason for removable is cooler on hot dry days and allows for direct ventilation with the liner removed and vents opened), good venting, will allow me to use my Gerbing heated liner instead of any included thermal liner, high quality preotection in fabrics and armor.
The main contenders were the Held Carese, Alpinestar Dainese?, Revit Defender. The Held had met all the criteria and had outstanding venting but just doesn't fit me. I'm a big guy at 6'3" and 260# so this is not a new problem to me. IF this jacket did fit, I would have chosen it just because of it's outstanding amount of venting...very high quality as were both of the other jackets. The Alpinstar did not have as much venting as the other two and also fit too small.
I ended up choosing the Revit Defender in silver and black. Very high quality construction, excellent protection with superfabric in impact areas, all materials were teflon coated Cordura ripstop, Gortex 3-layer removable liner and seperate thermal liner, SAS-Tec armor including the optional back armor whcih I also got. I regret having to give up the Hi_Viz color of my now returned Olympia AST, but Hi Viz isn't available for the Defender as of today. Venting is very good and the jacket with the liners removed is very light in weight. This jackets zippers also mate up with my Revit Sand pants although even if they didn't both the jacket and the pants came with the other half of the zippers that could be sewed on to another brand garment...like pretty much all decent gear of any brand. The jacket does fit very comfortably but looks like it fits a little tight. It's their design and it's supposed to fit that way and is very comfortable. Another thing I really like is that the fabric is soft, not at all stiff and crunchy like many mid range jackets are. So far I am very pleased and if this jacket matches the performance of my Revit Sand pants I'll remain that way.
Thanks for all the info along the way!