Mandalorian Armor used Mandalorian Iron, which used a special refinement technique that was lost to the galaxy at large with their defeat at the end of the Mandalorian War (Boba Fett's armor was likely worth a bantha's weight in gold).
Also, the empire, as several above posters pointed out, equipped storm-troopers by the billions. There were roughly 1.7 MILLION worlds under imperial control, the total garrisoned strength of the storm troopers would have bankrupted the empire to equip in high-end mercenary armor. That being said, they did have elite corps like the imperial guard and shadow troopers that were supposed to have better armor. As for storm-troopers, even us issue isn't truly top-of-the line, it's common knowledge that low-bids are a HUGE consideration in who the senate picks to get the contracts to supply the military. And that is in the US, where human rights and lobbyists work to promote the value of a soldier's life.
Now, take the empire, whose battle strategy in space combat was "throw swarms of the cheapest, fastest, unshielded guns with cockpits against the enemies and they'll go down eventually". The life of their soldiers was obviously not a top resource priority. Storm trooper armor would be the least expensive way the empire could find to field as many troops as possible in as many different environments as possible. The empire spent money on WMD and terror; death stars, clones of the emperor, star destroyers, at-ats, super star destroyers. They did not spend money on individual frontline troops.
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