Checking the stats it seems like Gnome Armor beats Ghost Chestplate: +1 distance, +1% physical and +8% protection energy.
But thinking about it deeply, ghost armor accepts 2 imbuements that gnome armor will never do: Ice and Energy protection imbuement.
About the Energy protection imbuements, in my opinion It is not really useful for RP hunt (heart of destruction only probably), but the ice protection is interesting.
I used to use Depth Lorica for those places where I needed ice protection (wintercourt for example), using vampirism imbuement on it + quara scale imbuement (14% ice protection).
Comparing the ghost chestplate with depth lorica, if we imbue both with powerful vampirism+ powerful quara scale imbuements, the only differences are an extra 3% physical protection of the first one and an extra +1dist + 5%death protection for the second.
If I had to choose between protection vs damage, I would choose damage for high levels RP, Who will not get headshot full surrounded of ice damage creatures; and I would use this Ghost chestplate armor for low levels ones Who need to have as much protection as they can to be able to block.