The current gear is fine, IMO. I could see an argument that some of the chain plate and full plate stuff look more like knight gear than pirate gear, but whatever.

I think, however, that this could lead to some interesting improvements in the way you want to play MRD.

Lets create another MRD guild in Ishguard or somewhere. This guild has marauders that are no a bunch of pirates, but rather knights or something. These marauders specialize in defense and protection. You do various quests for this particular sect of marauders, and you are able to learn more tank skills.

Then, make the MRD guild in Limsa more piratey. Add in quests that really emphasize offense, and pillaging and plundering. Doing quests from the Limsa guild earns you skills that are more useful to a DPS role.

The player would still be a Marauder no matter what, and can tweak and specialize his character, and even do both guilds' quests if he wants to.

Eventually, this could possibly lead the player onto a path to discover a third guild of Marauders, ones who have broken off from the Ishguard sect to form their own type of knights - ones that go all out offense and dabble in the dark arts.

Then you unlock the Dark Knight job.