There's been some talk as of late on the topic of having vanity gear in WoW, or gear that is just for looks and separate from the gear you wear for stats. The idea is that you have one set of gear that affects your character, and another set that is what people see. A couple other games are doing it, and mixed thoughts aside, there are rumblings of this feature possibly coming to Azeroth.
 
    A lot of players are already carrying a separate set in their bags for vanity purposes. There are all kinds of great add-ons (like Outfitter) that allow you to swap all your clothes at the click of your mouse. This suits game play better from a role playing perspective. When you're out in the middle of Netherstorm, you're gonna wear the best gear you got to protect yourself, but when you arrive in Stormwind, you wouldn't trudge around in your armor. You'd get some stylin' city clothes on before you hit the pub. It's a horrible idea. Having epic gear look good and not so epic gear look not good is all part of the motivation for players to get epic gear.

    Blizzard had mentioned plans of bringing Outfitter functionality to the game as a standard feature way back at Blizzcon for raiding purposes. Wouldn't it be great if they integrated vanity features as well? They could give us options to automate gear swapping based on what zone we're in or what day of the week it is!
Some kind of vanity gear system maybe let players use gear they have already acquired.For example: can dress up in the old dungeon sets but gain the bonus from your existing gear.In which case players can dress up / show off their achievements without feeling gimped. Their sets and rare quest items, etc. This means players still have to work for the looks that they want instead of just buying a bunch of nice looking gear to cover up their green auction house gear. Might mean players would actually revisit old content so they could look more unique.

    Implementing vanity gear makes things easier, yes, but all one has to do is play around with a few green items to find a nice outfit. Hell, the game even helps you along with "mini-sets" of green armor with the same prefix.

    Having more vanity gear is a great idea. It reduces the yawn factor induced by cookie-cutter tier sets ("Oh, look, there goes another T4 Priest.") It's tiresome seeing all the high-end raiders looking alike.

    Mind, Blizzard creating a clothes closet for all these garments would be very handy in-game. People get gear for the bonuses; people get clothes for the fun and to help communicate their characters