True but I don't think anyone wanted this kind of class restriction.
This is exactly what people wanted, before they realized that they could not have the cake and eat it too.

Gear and skills should distinguish one class from another, not the color of their armor.
So "gear color" is somehow not part of "gear" here? You're just ignoring it as an aesthetical factor which it undoubtedly is because...?

Yes but let's say we can dye AF armor for the sake of speculation.
Either way the first step is to restrict the model/color to a certain class. From that point onwards you can add additional layers of aesthetical differences to distinguish the players of the same class/role from one another. The customization you had before will be lost in either case.