I do believe the Stryker had to be up armored to stand any chance against RPGs and IEDs. The original armor was only good against heavy machine gun rounds. If you see pictures of Stryker’s in Iraq they have a metal cage around them to detonate RPG rounds before they hit the vehicle itself. The up armoring and now adding more firepower shows the deficiency of the original idea of the vehicle as maximizing strategic mobility and making up for the lack of armor/firepower with computer power.
Between every conflict mobility and fire power become more important than armor. Armor returns when the bullets start to fly.