Jaded haters of armored Batman? The 'opposite' of what Batman was? In Cinefex #41 (1989) Tim Burton explained, "I had looked at the Batman encyclopedia [The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes: Batman (1976) by Michael Fleisher] and found that the mythology contradicts itself - it changes it's own history and has gone through many alterations over the years. So early on, I realized that even if I wanted to be true to the 'real' Batman, there could be substantial argument as to what that really was. We were drawing from the original DC comics for inspiration - there was bound to be a certain '40s feeling to it."
http://www.1989batman.com/2012/03/vi...fex-issue.html
In original Batman stories in Detective Comics and in Batman issues he wore his bulletproof vest, which was even revealed to be a steel vest in Batman #2 (1941) "Wolf, the Crime Master" written by Bill Finger, and in Dark Knight Returns Frank Miller established the concept of the emblem on his chest as an armored target to draw gunfire away from his head. in the 1989 Comics Interview Super-Special, Batman (1989) scriptwriter Sam Hamm explains, "Well, the body armor stuff is one of the snatches from [Frank Miller's] DARK KNIGHT. Batman is falling through midair at one point and hopes his body armor holds, and I thought that was a very, very useful idea, in terms of how to do this character. Of course, the problem that you have with a superhero movie is, you know, why don't they just shoot the guy! When he corners a crook and he's standing ten feet away, no matter how quick his reflexes are, a Goon has plenty of time to shoot him before the batarang or whatever comes out. So, in the very first scene we're trying to establish Batman as this sort of [mysterious] mythical, [rumored as an] almost supernatural figure who is rumored to exist and has got the [superstitious] underworld in a panic, but whose actual presence no one has ever confirmed. Virtually the first thing that happens is he lands on a roof and a guy turns around and shoots him twice squarely in the chest, knocks him down, and as the crook is about to grab his swag and make a run for it, he looks back over his shoulder and the guy's coming back at him again. When you sit down and try to work out the grit, the nuts and bolts of how the guy does what he does, you have to ask questions - why doesn't he get shot, why doesn't he get his ribs kicked in. Frank Miller's solution seemed like the most logical one... Well, actually, there are a couple of, like, literal swipes from [Frank Miller's] DARK KNIGHT - I think from the final script the only bit which has really made it in is the notion that he [Batman] wears the emblem on his chest as a target, essentially, because he's trying to draw fire away from his head. There were a couple of other bits like that, but really there wasn't a whole lot that we could use in terms of plot and characterization, because [Frank Miller's] DARK KNIGHT takes place with this 60-year-old Batman who has sort of come back for his swan song."
http://www.1989batman.com/2013/05/vi...le-comics.html
Even with the armor, Burton's Batman gets injured and bleed. Past his frontal body armor, Catwoman even found his vulnerable area and drove her talons through one of the weakest protected sides of his suit, into his flesh.