Colored gear with specific classes.

[Rubicon]

Saying "class = colour nonsense is bunk" is your opinion.

Let me point out:
1) Color defining classes / jobs / roles has a well established tradition in the Final Fantasy universe
2) There were many requests for classes to be more well defined

I don't think it is too difficult to put these two things together to see where the dev team got this idea from.

With this logic, let's ask a Level 50 THM what their unofficial "AF" is. A red hat, a purple robe, green gloves, blue pants, and white shoes? Sure if they want the best stats. Or they could try to wear the same color clothes (let's pretend that THMs are meant to be purple) and not have the best stats. Not having ultimate stats doesn't sound very AF-ish to me.

I wish people would quit referring to AF. I seriously doubt classes will even get an AF, as an AF's stats supports a specific role and classes aren't meant to perform one specific role, they can mix and match abilities. Jobs will get AF because players will know what role a job is meant to play and the gear's stats will support that role.