It's kind of amusing; folks bring up FFXI's WHM gear as examples of awesome non-robe design - but they're only the way they are at all because the armor system in FFXI is designed in such a way that it's almost impossible to create a good-looking robe. There are NO robes in that game - even the items that are CALLED robes end at the waist. It wasn't until the Abyssea before they finally added any body piece that extended lower than the upper thigh, starting with the RDM and BLM Empyrean armors - and even then, it was pretty much exclusively coattails.

FFXI's WHM armor is actually quite interesting, as it represents the closest FFXI's designers could come to displaying traditional FF WHMwear in FFXI. The traditional one-piece white robe with the red triangles on the sleeves and hem simply wouldn't work in that game, and so they needed to modify it into what they have. As for how well that was received... well, the so-called "condom hat" was a point of contention among WHMs in that game for a long time, especially since there was nothing like the glamour system we have here...