Are you going to have enough money to RuneScape gold always fix the barrows sets if you buy them? (I'd guess it would be an issue, if you have to offer your d armor to get the barrows) If he has enough for a dpl8 he sure as hell could manage the expense of repair. What is the point of wearing barrows if you are not using the entire set and not obtaining the set bonus? The maximum def bonus in the game?

What are you really using the armor for? If you're constantly in PvP combat, then you would have to mend often. If you are repairing yourself, is the smith high enough so you can save money doing this on your own POH? That also adds the worries of having a workshop and armor rack on your POH to fix, or paying full price from Bob in Lumby.

It costs about 250k or buy OSRS gold so to repair 2 bits of barrows armor every 15? Hrs of combat. Which I presume someone did the math about 10M in repairs playing 2hrs every day for a year. Which can be cut in half if you can fix on your PoH but that doesn't really matter imo. I play sw almost everyday at least an hour every day normally. Which is about 40minutes of direct combat and I only have to repair once a month or so, if that. I thnk that you should, dpl8 is solely for the looks imo. I believe that barrows are worthwhile all the way. I have used them because I could and I have never had a problem with repair price, even before I'd a huge number to throw around.