I realized that I needed +vitality stuff on all my gear back in Act 2 of NM. I prefer +strength, so usually try to get both on items, and forgo more armor for better stats.
I'm in Act 3 NM now and finally have a reasonably well built barb at level 49. Carrying a shield with strength bonus, but may swap to vitality. However, 100+ dps weapons finally started dropping, so I've been using those unless I'm getting killed over and over again - then I go back to shield and ~70 dps sword.
Crit chance/damage bonuses didn't appeal to me initially since I thought that a random skill was less important than a solid base damage. Well, I was wrong. I'm using the +crit chance and damage perk, and am looking for a mace weapon to bump crit chance even higher with the other perk.