Hey dudes, stop with the gesses ok.
Many vases and paintings show that. Do yourselves a favor and buy some Osprey books.
Conventional hoplite war was with armor and akontistai had no armor. I´m not telling you it should be different.
Marines fought at sea with no armor or linothorax at maximum, and with swords, but since Greek ships could not stay at sea for more than one or two days becuase they used to get floded, marines had to dress theirselves with their armor and had secure it or they had to pillage for food at night and, in this case, of course they were armored at their maximum.
However, armor was not provided by the state, unless for the elites and the Spartans so they had to fight with their families possessions and a set of armor was very expensive.
So, besides the use or armor among the hoplites was common, not wearing it was not uncommon either.
So, my suggestion was to only simulate those few unarmored ones somehow.
I don´t know why you are complaining that much kids. Lynores has already done that with the Spartans. Why don´t you take a look at their troop tree?
Spartan Youth (unarmored) -> Spartan Spearman (unarmored) -> Spartan Hoplite (linothorax) -> Spartan Heavy Hoplite (linothorax - I think it should be cuirass) -> Spartan Officer (cuirass)
BTW, the Spartan champions you like so much were only 2 guys (not a whole army) who were the king´s (not any officer) bodyguards in addition to the 300 somatophilakes. They were chosen among olympic champions indeed.