I agree on generally using paces. I think it's much better for the international community so that people can choose to use meters rather than yards and have everything work out pretty much the same.
I don't know why someone recalculated things for TME after we had reasonable and much nicer values for years beforehand, and placed in a convenient box entitled "Volume Conversion Guide" (A&A p.76) rather than hidden in a spell. I would use the Volume Conversion Guide for everything; and that spell isn't so far off. There we see the Base Individual for water is 20 cubic paces (which rounds pretty nicely to 4000 gallons, though it's slightly bigger).
I agree on ice armor. There was a thread somewhere here where this was examined not too long ago... Ice Armor?