Personally in FFXI I always found people checking me without asking first as very rude (and not just because of the slightly sexual innuendo of someone 'checking out' - ala, perving - on a female character), as often such checkers would then send offensive tells to me criticizing my choice of equipment/job-sub combo because it didn't match their narrow-minded idea of what gear I should be wearing or job/sub combo I should have (and no, I wasn't wearing anything gimp or ridiculous, or had a stupid job/sub combination, I just experimented with gear that worked well for me). However, if someone actually asked me if they could check my gear, I usually said yes. It just basically came down to manners and courtesy.

And yeah, I often got spamchecked in places like Jeuno as well - usually I made my annoyance known by saying in emote "/Enkidoh feels examined ><" or, more rarely and crudely" "/Enkidoh pulls out her knife and says "the next one to check me without asking loses their eyes!" :P

Hence not having to worry about that in FFXIV was a major improvement in my opinion - one of the things FFXIV actually got right at the start. :P So I really hope it's not brought back for 2.0.