Wheel of Time MUD

Are these any good?

a red-painted breastplate
a double axe with a long black haft
a two-handed broadsword

In the grand scheme of things, what's the best non-rare/unique axe currently? What's the top non-rare/unique weapon tier looking like these days?

They are all low-tier items in their respective groups.

As far as axes go, bronze headed war axe or titanic spiked axe of ebon steel are your best bets. The tradeoff is better damage on the bronze axe for slightly more OB/weight on the titanic axe.

For top weapon tiers, it really depends on what you are looking for in a weapon. For abs weapons, I'd say there are actually pretty good reasons to go for different classes. Long blades for high OB/decent damage, axes for damage, clubs for bash, etc. For combo, I think long blades are generally the go-to, either 1h or 2h depending on practices available, but they are not nearly the end-all-be-all they were before, so other classes aren't made obsolete.

Also, if you want to play around with equipment to see what kinda stats you'll pull use this trainer made by Thuvia:
http://www.wotmudarchives.org/tools/etrainer.html

And for cleaner stats on individual items, make sure to look over the wikia.

http://wotmud.wikia.com/wiki/Weapon

A little help... right now I have a dark serrated axe ive been using for the higher ob over the gold inlaid, but i realized this is a one handed axe vs a 2 handed... so my stats as a warrior are 18, 12, 9, 13, 18. Based on that, correct me if I'm wrong... I should use the 2 handed because defense other than abs is never going to work well for me? I figured it didn't matter right now while I'm lvling up but just for future reference.

Yes, you are better off with a 2 handed axe because they are heavier and usually do more damage. Your ability to bash/damage output are going to be more important than your OB, ultimately.