I hit the ground recently. I got cut up in all the same spots that CDR did in that post. Let me ask you this, BikeForums, If some company made some reusable patches as a preventative measure that you could place on your body with some skin adhesive would you wear it? Or, better yet, what if bibs came with reinforced sections around the hips (some kind of material like a tire liner - flexy but strong) would you wear it? Most atheltes in other sports have some kind of protection somewhere, but we'd prefer to slide across pavement once in a while rather than add a few grams or slightly limit our range of motion? Whyyyy?
That's that "baselayer or not" question. I normally don't wear a base layer in crits except for warmth. Oddly enough I always wear long finger gloves. I guess I'd rather be able to type than avoid road rash. Part of it is the quick recovery with most road rash - with Tegaderm most light rash will be gone in 6 days. Only deep cuts or wounds will hang around longer.
Someone locally came out with Road Rash Guard, but after thinking about it for a while I realized that it only protects where it is, not around the area.
A long time ago someone made a dual layer short, i.e. a built in base layer for certain panels (in this case the side panels). The concept was great, the shorts were bad. In other words if they started with good shorts it'd have worked. Instead they started with bad shorts so you had poor fitting, uncomfortable, but safe shorts. I fell on them at least once, and teammates fell too. We mainly avoided road rash. One teammate was working with the designer and they mapped scars on legs/hips to figure out the panel size/area. Unfortunately the chamois and seams were horrible.
I'd consider dual layer clothing, i.e. inner and outer layer in specific spots. So shoulders, elbows (if long sleeve), hips/legs (shorts/tights). The inner layer would be light, 4 or 6 oz lycra, the outer layer would be tough, almost like cordura (8 oz?). This buys you a lot of slide room before you get road rash. If I could get my current kit (Hincapie or Verge) with such features I would.
btw on Tegaderm, buying the 50 pack is the cheap way to do it. You can split costs with anyone who you help out with the extras.