Retainers are the only ones who provide a clear ingame advantage due to their ability to make gil from thin air.

I'm not a fan of cosmetics being sold on the shop. I feel it would do them better to have it as a ingame item as content instead of being sliced off for sale.

Every new NPC is pretty much a fashion model now in my eyes. It's a shame they feel the need to clip content from the game this way.