Energy Melee is better for single target damage.
Elec Melee is good for single target and great for AoE's
(i think 8 of 10 people would prefer Elec Melee for performance)
I don't care for Kinetic Melee unless you're a scrapper (huge damage difference)
I like Electric Armor and Willpower.
I've heard Energy Aura has gaps in the protection, but im not seeing it atm.
perma jump is ---> /up 1
elec/elec is very nice, though i prefer elec armor over elec melee, it is lacking in single target damage, though it makes up for it in AoE, and talk about never needing to build for end management, elec armor is just "wow" for your blue bar.
EM is fun, single target almost exclusively, whirling hands needs....... well it's a darned waste of a power slot if you ask me, and i ain't no min/max'er, i play concept toons strictly, numbers come a distant second, and whirling hands still sux, sorry 
BUT, if you are a solo'er, or just enjoy the ST damage type, EM still works just fine, the higher end powers are a little slow to animate, but it doesn't bother me too much.
EA will get you alot of conflicting opinions, ALOT. most will say "it's teh suxors", but i gotta disagree. It's relatively easy to soft cap, has great end management, stealth if you want to take advantage of it, and a minuscule heal, and, when you have everything running, it's PRETTY!!!
in the end, i say make both, play both toons out of Praetoria, see which one you like better, and run with it, not like you don't have enough character slots to play with in this game.
Oh yeah, that was the time that girl got her whatchamacallit stuck in that guys dooblickitz and then what his name did that thing with the lizards and it cleared right up.
screw your joke, i want "FREEM"
Don't pass up the possibility of mixing the two, Elec/EA, or EM/Elec. Especially since you said you'd be doing a "power armor" type, where you can pretty much justify anything with "GADGET!"
I personally don't recommend Energy Melee anymore unless you'll be primarily soloing. It's got great ST DPS, but it has the drawback that when in a team, you may as well not use your two best attacks unless it's an AV. Energy Transfer and Total Focus take so long to animate that in team play, your target is likely dead and the power is wasted.
I just returned to the game 2 weeks ago and am still getting my bearings (didn't play since around CoV released).
The other day in-game I was hearing some hate about Brute El/El and En/En.
Concept-wise I guess I like the idea of Energy/Energy more than Electric/Electric. I can justify/imagine that he's using energy emission + forcefields to be a melee contender more than I can justify electricity "somehow" protecting me.
I wasn't getting the most solid answer one way or another on which was better though I think more people complained about EnergyMelee and Kinetics being too slow
I also gave Kin/WP a try. Though I liked the "look" of the Kin animations they just seemed to take too long (perhaps my imagination). WP seemed like a fairly solid jac-of-all-trades with some resists and heals and what-not.
So are any of these concepts a LOT inferior than the others? Are any of these stronger?
Will I be "gimped" with EM/EA? Is Elec/Elec better to the point that it's recommended? etc
In short, I'd like something that can fit a Tech-based hero in a Power Armor type suit. So I'd like to stay away from Stone, Dark, and even Claws since those never seemed very hero-friendly (Wolverine barely an exception).