Does it? I've yet to see any numbers.
If we had numbers, we wouldn't need to speculate. They systems don't exist yet.
Like what class of armor are we expecting Gen 1 PA to have?
If the DARPA mockups are to be believed, they'll range all the way from "no additional protection" to "hardened full body NBC suit". Efficacy of armor unknown, but obviously better than what a standard infantryman can carry in the latter cases.
All I've been seeing are claims that PA will revolutionize warfare.
There have been one or two people claiming that, but most of us have simply been arguing against your notion that they're useless since they can be defeated by weapons that already exist.
I've yet to see a realistic proposal for a 1st Generation power armor.
Are you expecting one? We know people are working on early concepts. There are no inherent issues with the general concepts, we know that because Powered Exoskeletons already exist:
The questions are ones of engineering details, whether they can be effectively militarized and perform to the necessary standards or not.
If you'd like to know more, do searches for BLEEX, SARCOS XOS (Raytheon), HAL-5 (manufactured by the awesomely named
Cyberdine) and HULC (Lockheed Martin)
What kind of cooling systems do you propose?
I don't propose anything, because I'm not an engineer.
What kind of battery life can we expect?
Rehashing earlier answers, 24 hours continuous operation was the minimum standard DARPA would accept. Feasibility unknown, but we know that they at least felt it a reasonable medium-term goal.
Are we including built-in optics and comms?
Basically every "soldier of the future" concept does, so it's a safe bet.
When they do hit the ground there is no reason why a battle rifle with special rounds couldn't put them down or mission kill them, they'll have a higher IR signature to detect. They also die just was well to many other things. In short all extra cost, no gain.
Last I checked Battle Rifles with APDS ammunition weren't standard kit for 3rd world Guerilla outfits. Are you saying shrugging off Kalishnikov fires isn't useful? Are you saying that being able to have soldiers experience markedly less fatigue while carrying significantly heavier kits isn't useful?
Until we get real stats, we can't say whether it's going to be a valuable thing or not.