Rift To Get Appearence Armor Slots?

Rift Junkies reports that some sort of cosmetic armor set/wardrobe feature seems to be coming to the game's alpha server. 

LOTRO's outfit panel, back in the old days

I sympathize with folks who want the coolest looking gear to be saved for the truly challenging accomplishments.  If anything, cosmetics are one of the few places where a developer can save a little something extra to reward the hardcore crowd without keeping the best portions of the game locked away from the majority of its customers.  Also, as Ferrel noted a bit ago, it's very easy for developers to take cosmetic slots as an invitation for cash store abuse... and/or bleeping chainsaws if these Aion shots Chris posted really aren't a belated April Fool's thing. 

That said, the demand for this feature is significant and growing.  Developers can shake their heads at players for demanding it (as Scott Jennings does, to comic effect), but I do genuinely view LOTRO and EQ2's cosmetic systems as big assets to the respective games - even gear that I have no intention of using can become an exciting reward if it happens to be just what I needed for my latest coordinated outfit.  This feature also makes me more willing to grind out seasonal or world events for cosmetic outfits, where in WoW these items will just take up space in my bank since I can't ever wear them without losing massive amounts of stats. 

If Rift really is aboard the cosmetic train, we're probably never going to see another major MMO try to do without this type of system in the future.  On the plus side, this may solve the case of the missing extraplanar pants.