Your instincts are correct in that you are better off with the AoE defense, ranged defense, and some recharge.
Thanks! This way actually saves a bit of money too!
Of the positions, AoE def ranks the lowest to cap, but getting ranged capped will be rather nice since the bulk of mezzes come from ranged attacks. The loss in recharge isn't significant enough to really sweat it.
As you get a higher amount of recharge each additional percentage suffers from diminishing returns and becomes less valuable. The difference between 80% and 100% recharge is small in terms of actual seconds.
As you get closer to the defense cap, each percentage increase become MORE valuable. As you move from 40% to 45% the amount of damage (against even cons) drops by half. The math is a little tricky to explain, but basically you are going from taking 10% of the damage directed towards you to 5% of the damage, and that gives you twice the amount of survivability.
Many people point out that theres a lot of cases were your opponents will have +to hit or you might be debuffed, so being a little over the soft-cap is generally useful. Of course, its usually pretty easy to eat a purple or two to be safe.
I prioritize Defense as Melee, Ranged, Then AoE. A few points off on AoE won't make or break you. However, It's good to get both Melee and Ranged capped. I'd go with the 80 recharge and 45/45/45. I might consider 90 or 100 recharge with 45/44/40 defenses.
I have a choice to make in a build I have. I can have recharge at 100% and about 34% AOE defense with a few purple sets, OR I can get 45% AOE defense (along with about 47% ranged def) and still get 80% recharge bonus with a slightly cheaper build (although still fairly expensive for me). It seems to me that 80% recharge bonus is quite good and to be able to soft cap AOE as well as ranged defense would be more important. All of the other stats are similar enough.
What do you think?