Following on from the same suggestion I left in Grounded.

I love the class armors but would like to use progression on all armors some start at tier 1 when they unlock, but then with upgrade rocks and bug parts make it tier 2 then 3 etc. this way people can wear what ever armor they like for there style but they upgrade the same with some different abilities. 

Example of Mage armor 

Acorn armor: Tier 1 - can be upgraded all the way to Tier 5 via story progression and will require more parts as it goes along with then certain abilities that can only be used with this type. 

Lady Bug armor: Starts at Tier 2 but the level would be the same as an upgrade Tier 2 Acorn armor and level the same but for different look and abilities.

The main difference in stats then would be the classes only with Tank having more health etc and Archers more speed.

Thoughts?

Or even to make it simpler why not have Tiers 1 thru 5 of each weapon/armor but as part of the Tier 2 recipe you must have an upgraded Tier 1 of the same type with some kills/hits taken to its name. Just so the Early tiers aren’t worthless as it seems they are replaceable so quickly I mean even on WHOA! I’m at tier 2 in less than the first hour of game play.

There's a better chance of them adding in a transmog machine to let you just make one set of armor look like anything else.  With the 'founders packs' that override a cosmetics look they can just implement a system where you put into a machine one set of armor that holds the image then wear whatever you want and your look wont change.  That's how Abiotic Factor solved it so they could have Tiers of armor while still letting the players look however they wanted to. 

I also anticipate them selling other ones in the future too.  It's easy money for companies to make now.

I feel that doing that for all armor sets would be a lot of work, but I do think that there is something to this in the fact that people who invest in early armor that has strong/liked set bonuses do not want to lose their investment or feel like they have to abandon the armor they have grown attached to in favor of higher tier gear.... An example: Lady Bug armor is strong and very well-liked, but it is lower tier. What if, after fighting ladybirds (Assuming they will make it back into the game) your ladybug armor could be used to craft a higher-tier version with the same or close to the same bonuses? This could be done for particularly liked early game sets that have a later game counterpart to the bug... Just so you don't lose a unique version of armor for those later game counterparts that could be included too of course.