"The need for armor became such a political football that basic questions like that got short-shrift."
Exactly, these are the consequences of acting through emotions and political expediency rather than logic.
There. Fixed it.
Oh, wait. Darnit, I just said exactly the same thing you did. So sorry!
Absolutely.
It's also an example of a "one-size-fits-all" strategy. A better way to have gone about it would have been to up-armor a certain percentage of Hummers & make them the modern-day equivalent of the Vietnam "Gun Truck". Give those drivers & gunners special training & use them as convoy protection, leaving the rest of the Hummers to operate more-or-less as before. Less wear 'n tear on the overall fleet, and fewer accidents from mishandling the modified "Gun Hummers".
Another solution might have been to ship in a bunch of Marine LAV's (as opposed to Strykers) or still another would be to up-armor some High-mobility trucks. Let them fill the convoy protection role. Guaranteed that the enemy troop with the RPG isn't going to waste a shot or reveal himself shooting at a HumV when he's going to get rundown/gunned-down by a much more serious combat vehicle.