This especially revolves around non-evils, with large emphasis on goodies. I loathe seeing heroes walking around in charred bracers and studded work gloves. Likewise, I can't stand how horribly bad roleplay it is everytime a hero good goes to a place like Kuo-Toa for instance and requests the armor of the doomed goodies and then words themselves to safety leaving them to their fate.

I could be nitpicking, but I cannot imagine my Acolyte going up to Versiloth and demanding his hammer while he stands against the bastard forces of the Udgaard. I cringe when they go to Basilica and listen to their 'impending' danger then ask them to remove their boots, axe or helm and fork them over, or when they punk a neutral becaue they need his gear, like Ludan for instance. Its horrible. I also think its rather silly that my hero/heroine has to go around begging for armor or killing innocents just to get them ready to fight, it doesn't make sense. I can't buy a good set of armor, but some schmuck in the middle of nowhere can apparently make one or have one made for them (IE, mobs have good gear, wands, etc, pc's with few exceptions have squat). It makes no sense that this man/woman of vast repute cannot so much as accomodate themselves with arms and that we all look haphazardly strung together with various trinkets and mismatched items. I give my life for the Maran, or toil for the Empire, but they can't even give me a damn sword (with exception to lightforge).

Anyway, here is what I propose. I'd like to see a version of it for all levels, but at the least hero and if not even that then at least heroes with some reputation. Give people their own specialized if need be armor. Maybe its crap armor, or something but its my firm opinion that my knight hero should have a fitting set of armor for his troubles throughout life, and that my dastardly necromancer shouldn't have to resort to wearing the umpteenth white worm skin to get by. Even if at low levels it has no stats on it, maybe not even AC, it just doesn't make sense to be butt naked in this world. I'd like to see rings and wrists, cloaks abouts and girdles, wings, etc, left without this completely. But it would be cool if I had a set of full plate or chainmail that would cover my arms, legs, torso, helm, feet, and gauntlets. That to me would make sense, maybe even a weapon or weapons could be more rare. As you got better recognized, the stats could get better, or maybe they're custom fitted to what you want, or maybe just the armor you're wearing when you've been hero for a while gets changed (if not too powerful) into the same thing without a name.

Since this would be fairly powerful, I would fully understand hitting limits hard on existing mob related gear and even removing some as well as possibly increasing the con penalty of dying. That being said, its kind of sad that a goodie or neutral has to completely disobey roleplay not out of convenience but necessity. Because if I didn't request, I would have nothing except whats bestowed by the outfit command or I could earn in pk or etc. Because a well established leader character looks retarded that he's wearing something a level 20 guy would wear, or runnign around as a ghost trying to kill the troll commander and seantryn patrol captain. It would shift the focus of the game from gear, to roleplay, in that you'd have to roleplay better to earn better stuff, rather than the pokeman style of 'gotta collect 'em all' of gear in the game. There's no reason me and another guy should have to fight over a set of ornate gear or there should be a line developing to slay the white worm...this is a world full of adventurers and the guild system should reflect that or at the least, if an Imperial donates 2 million in gold to his sect and is a leader then takes a death defending, you'd think those asswipes could give him a cloak, sword, and some studded leather. Its not really charity, its merely more realistic, lining up and slaying a mob three times so you can get each of your friend's a cloak seems foolish. I'd say either make better buyable goods (granted, the stuff out there is OK but I can still not find a reason I'd fully deck myself in it except to hold me over until I can get better or until a crash/reboot), or hand out some quest armor. Right now its sorta sad but after dying it seems like you have to run through a 'grocery list' of things seeing what is in and most people wind up looking exactly the same.

I agree with what you say.

A idea I had while reading your post is:

Make a blacksmith guild or area somewhere moderatly hard to
find.  At these special blacksmiths, you can purchase
customized armor.  Maybe you can bring material such as iron
swords to be melted down.  After you have enough reserve
material you can ask for it to be made into whatever you want.
 The armor quality comes out random, but the more gold you
offer the better the chance of the armor being decent. 
Probably would have to cap how good they would be.  The names
could all be generic.  Like you have ordered Jarvino's iron
breastplate.  But, I think it would be cooler if the players
could personalize them further.  Maybe have the blacksmith ask
what you would like to call your breastplate.  

I dunno how hard this would be to do but it seems possible.

-Jarv