I personally never like this in MMO's, and think it would be even worse here. You can turn head display off, which is the big one, but if you can put any appearance on any armor, then you'll have a bunch of mages running around in heavy armor, or other such things. To me it kind of ruins the feel and immersion of the game. Also as you said, being able to quickly discern a player, not so much how "good" their gear is but more, *what* they are is more important to me. It's the same reason explained why Team Fortress 2 only allows small modifications of appearance.