Hold the pitchforks and flaming torches for a moment...
I am of the opinion that armor dye was one of the big mistakes made in the evolution of this game. Before dye, it was perfectly reasonable to itemize a few armor sets at a level range with similar stats in different colours. In some cases you'd even sacrifice some stats for a look (i.e., gnome skin for the black). If you had something rare (especially robes) it was more obvious. It also meant that not everyone was red and black. Sometimes it would compel you to want to hunt to "get rid of these arms that don't match".
The Devs seemed to be thinking of this when they almost released the Drakkin incompatable with armor dye. They caved to forum rage there.
Heroes forge offers a compromise though:
Replace armor dye with Heroes Forge as a feature of the Legacy of Ykesha expansion. This keeps progression servers with that old school feel, while at the same time giving something to everyone on live. Enough money should have been made on the activation part of Heroes Forge, this creates more demand for the ornamentations. Maybe remove most dropping ornamentations from game and make them seasonal and one-time event things with alternate access (and more options) in the marketplace. Can also add recipes to create armor ornamentations of the "missing" original looks in a given colour.
They'd get to add "black banded, red banded, etc." to the marketplace as well which would just monetize the current looks many have.
Ornamentation sets would then make more sense as a bundled perk of buying an expac.
Thoughts? (tweaks, suggestions, opposition, dismissal...)