Aerostich is one of the most expensive pieces of gear out there, BUT it does work very very well in a crash (as a friend of mine just proved this last Thursday when a vehicle decided to make an illegal u-turn on I-70 and my friend slammed into her at 70mph. Walked away with a broken wrist).
I don't commute, so my personal views may be slightly different than your goals, but this is what has worked for me.
I look for a single set of gear that I can wear all the way through Death Valley in the summer, though frog-choking rain, and into frigid cold winters.
I was wearing
TourMaster Flex pants, where the outer panel unzips from the legs and reveals a huge mesh panel across my thigh and shin plus was large enough I could wear regular pants underneath. Comes with knee and hip armor and a zip to match it to the jacket (never did that). Worked really really well until the material just got beaten down by heat, sun, and wear until it was no longer water resistant. Does come with an interior rain and thermal liner that I only wore in winter. Good price point too.
I am now wearing
Olympia MotoQuest pants, that have a similar mesh panel on the front covered by a textile panel that can be rolled up behind the knee armor to expose the mesh on the thigh. They are not waterproof, but do come with a rain liner that can be worn inside or *outside* the pants themselves (score!). Plus the adjustability is nice, 6 inches at the cuff to hem to your personal liking.
That is the only mesh that I'll deal with.
My jacket went from a
Tourmaster Jett 3, to a Lookwell something so old it's not on their site anymore, now to a
Olympia Ranger.
Key for me is heavy on the waterproof side (for sudden intense but short lived desert rain storms) with some venting in the arms and wrists (no gussets in the sleeves) as I use an interior base layer sleeve that I soak and let the wind up my arms cool down through evaporation and then trap that cold air in the core of the jacket. Mesh would just let all that cold air escape. Also, for me out here in the desert, once the
air reaches above 93* the air moving through your mesh is no longer cooling you off, but instead heating you up. Personally, I found this to be true when I tried a Joe Rocket mesh jacket in August in Death Valley and found I was FAR more comfortable when I put the shell of the Tourmaster over the mesh to block the wind.
Hope that gives you some things to ponder.
