They're not dolls! They're action figures!!!
I'll be okay with it as long as Nomura is not involved in any way.
I like the idea of fashion clothing, so long as they don't take up my inv space and I'm not restricted to what I'm able to get and wear.
The real problem with the "look" of the gear is the time period they set the clothing in. They've chosen a more medieval time period (like the real world medieval, not medieval fantasy as in the genre). If you've looked into this time period most of everything worn was either draped loosely (ie: cowls and turbans, one piece of fabric clothings) or consisted of dull chain or plate metal (ie: chain mail and plate mail with very little design or "flair").
While on the other hand:
Final Fantasy XI, uses more of a renaissance time period where the clothing was more intricate and more fabrics used patterns, also chain/plate mails had etching and intricate designs on them. In turn we can see in XI's gear more designs on the actual articles of clothing. With this they were able to create more visually appealing pieces of armor/clothes.
What I hope happens to XIV:
Personally I hope they run from their initial concept of "Medieval attire" and develop a new armor/clothing concept so we can have more visually appealing stuff to equip, now I know you say its just a guideline and yes I would have to agree there are some armor that is not truly "medieval" but the lack of color and design (not texture) on the armor still keeps it in that time period.
As a graduate student who has designed clothing articles for both said time periods, I hope this sheds some light on the lack of good looking armor.
PS: Its quite possible for them to get a new concept design for when an expansion rolls around (after all they did it in FFXI)
I certainly agree with the most of the current styles being too "medieval" or archaic instead of a mix between archaic/fantasy.
I'm not sure I'd like them to copy FFXI because I never played it because of how it looked. I just want XIV to, yes be it's own game, but also resemble a Final Fantasy game clothes/style-wise.
I hope my sentiments have been relayed to the devs. This is what I want THE most out of this game.
I don't know about adding gear that's there just to look good but adding a way to tweak and change gears looks and variations would be awesome. Those who have seen the making of videos will probably remember how SE showed a bit where using simple sliders they could entirely change the way a piece of gear looks. I think they should give the players that control as well as toggle options that can change the way gear looks. For example the OP mentioned Cloud having only 1 shoulder guard. Think of the toggles as something that can do things like that. Choose what side you want the guard on or both and what not and this can apply to alot more.
The bottom line that comes out of this thread is that players should feel they are different from everyone else and not just another clone of a NPC or what not. The way to do this is to add alot more character creation options and to make armor and gear ALOT more Customizable. I don't think it's a top priority but I do think it's something that will really help the game down the road once the bigger issues are out of the way.