Guild Wars 2

Having reached the stats you want, you can virtually reach those same numbers with other armor upgrades (Runes, Orbs, Crests), just playing with build calculators. Some people prefer runes for the skills they give, others prefer orbs or crests to reach higher stat numbers.

With that in mind, which do you think are the Best armor upgrades and why? Which runes give skills or abilities to good to ignore?

Some thoughts would be nice

there isn’t an answer to your question. Each build has the perfect combination of runes/orb/crest not depending on a “overal best stat” but depending on a “the one which suits that build better”.

only few examples:
-if you have shout → rune of soldier
-if you need precision and damage → rune of eagle
-if you need boon duration → rune of water (and all other combinations)
-if you need a stat mix → orbs/crests
-if you need boon proc → cittadel/pack/baelfire (etc)

anyway, more important is to reach your “ideal” stats… then you can look for bonuses or if you think that a bonus is essential for you, you can also sacrifice some stats… but it’s really personal.