As stated before some players don't like the idea of everyone looking the same at some point in the game (when we all earned our highrank "ubergear")
AriOrH considered customization as n option in the future content... so my solution would be:
EVENTS !! (yeah i know, way to early to talk about such things
)
but...
there could be tournaments with special gearsets that wont be accessible after the event... no one else would look like the winning team.
plus - you could definitely recognise "veterans" by their looks... could have some very impressive effect on your enemy to see the "UBERVANQUISHER SEASON 1" joining the battle
cheers -
OMG.