The reason this exists is because on other MMOs the AH was used as a banking system. People would put hundreds of items on the AH which no-one could afford to buy in order to gain more 'space' in their inventories. I agree with this limitation move.
Some robes have hoods over head and others have them flipped back...are you sure you have the donned hooded robe variety? Other than that its probably their tentacles.