Visible belts were removed with ARR specifically because it was such a hinderance to varied gear design in 1.0 (they had to design body and leg wear to allow for belts so that they didn't clip badly through them and looked 'right'), which is why 1.0 gear was mostly just colour variations of about ten to twenty different basic gear designs.

It's the price that had to be paid for better gear designs (and glamour that goes with that).