Colored gear with specific classes.

[Arcell]

This is exactly what people wanted, before they realized that they could not have the cake and eat it too.

No, people wanted class uniqueness in the form of their role and skills. The whole class uniqueness argument was started because of how the armory system allowed people to equip basically any skill on any class with few exceptions. It had nothing to do with gear color. People wanted their classes to be unique in that they could do things others couldn't, skill-wise.

So "gear color" is somehow not part of "gear" here? You're just ignoring it as an aesthetical factor which it undoubtedly is because...?

Because the gear itself should determine what class wears it, not the color of the gear. Considering now the color of a piece of gear can be changed after it is made, it has little to do with the actual function of the piece of equipment.

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.

Model yes, color no. As stated above, color should have no bearing on the actual function of a certain piece of equipment. Just because I painted it red generally doesn't/shouldn't mean that it is now functionally better.