can runes be removed without losing your armor?

I should probably know this by now, but Ive been scared to use runes on my armor because I want to swap them out as I find better ones.
Ive found minor runes of vigor and such, but if I use it on my max lvl infused armor and then I find a major rune of vigor, then I have to buy that armor and infuse it again just to be able to use the major rune right?
Maybe I can salvage the rune? but can I salvage the armor? Or can I just use one rune to replace another rune in its place?

if you put a new rune on armor that already has a rune on it, it will remove the old rune and put on the new one
i don't know if it deletes it or just removes it

If you try salvaging you may get the rune or you may get junk like 19 bolts of raw cloth...You will never get the armour back from salvaging though

You can replace the existing rune on the armor, however you will not get the old one back.

and the max number of runes you can use is 3 right? or is it 5, one for each piece of clothing?

5 one for each piece

I had some 51AL Elementalist armour to which I had added a Minor Rune of Energy Storage. After finding a collector offering 60AL armour, I tried salvaging the 51 armour. I got the message "This item can not be salvaged."

Where did you get the 51 amour...I belive if it is froma collector it can not be salvaged.

That is correct.

whats it with collectors anyways? they seem to only give out second rate stuff. I can get better dropped weapons and buy better armor. If collectors gave out skills....then Id be collecting.

Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.

These are basically for newer or broke players that dont have the needed materials for the good stuff.

looks is also a reason, the armor i got is not to be bought from a armor guy and it looks a lot better than the city stuf.
(monkarmor +60 from the ascention desserts)