Quote - I'm concerned that when I go to make it conforming, those rigid plates will bend with the figure and look wrong.

Each actor has a 'bend' switch that can turn bending on or off. You can edit it in the cr2, or set it in the actor's Properties within Poser. There is also a master switch 'allowsBending' in the 'figure' section, it will unconditionally turn off bending fore the entire figure. A value of '1' in a switch = on, a value of '0' = off.