Can you understand how in a RP guild where they change the outfit to match where and when they are going sometimes 3 times a night in a good session that it might cost a little too much? THe whole reason they made it the way it is so that you didn't have to worry about your gear and that you could wear whatever you wanted, look however you wanted. They took this route over say world of warcrafts transmog (only using this as a reference as that was her last game). Their system was more friendly say to ours for RP. I dont know how SWG delt with it, however I am pretty sure that they had a costume of some kind. They didnt do a costume design because they had the modded gear already in the game, which allow you to look any way you wanted.
I think that the scaling might be off, however I feel as it should still be discounted for subs. I would normally say that they should discount it for RP servers only because they are the ones that use it the most. However the issue with this then is that people that are not RP'ers will go there just for this reason, don't know why but if someone can save a buck somewhere they will do it.