what is stopping me from purchasing a lot of sets

I agree 100% OP! Customization is typically an MMO playstyle all itself...SWTOR makes that nearly impossible to do due to the high costs.

It would probably hurt sales, because people would just cosmetically equip some random old green thing they like the looks of. That said, sure, I prefer this method (LotRO, for one, does it this way).

is it really "high cost" for a single piece of armor maybe 30-40k to swap out everything. Credits in the game are FREE meaning there is no real effort in gaining them.

quests/dailies can give pretty substantial amounts, even when just vendoring the items. ex. ran oricon on my sent did nothing but the story arch and one of the items given for reward was well over 65k just to vendor. The weekly drop from CZ can sell for 50k on GTN sometimes more.

I just sold a 31 lvl quick savant for 1.25million on GTN. I've been using the same armor pieces since the GTN first started (paid 350k for my destroyers chest piece) almost a year ago. I have 6 toons, main has 4.5million and rest are sitting at 500k+ the 10k or so to pull an armoring is minor and irrelevant. Without some credit sinks inflation would be exponential (remember when 100k was alot of money).

It gets cliche` to say but go run quests/dailies and work the GTN.

Point me to the green random things that is Bastila Shan's outfit, the Last Handmaiden or Revan's mask.

The obvious point here is that by making a cosmetic slot, Bioware would expand the cosmetic inventory so that players would have to acquire the unique stuff. The added bonus is that because they make them purely cosmetic, these items do not need to be balanced for stats or mods beyond dye.
That way players can get the best stat gear in the game for their actual armor without the issue of looking like garbage because they can change the cosmetic appearance to something they do like.

As for the stupidity of claiming - It's a credit sink !!!!
Seriously ?

This would require people to buy the stat armor AND cosmetic armor which can be expanded to companions as well.
Oh right, paying lots to remove mods from gear every time is so much more effective than just having players buy cosmetic gear that cost just as much in a single simple transaction.

Have you compared the recent sets to the old greens? There are a few interesting green armors, but if you had 4-5 appearance tabs that would not be an issue.

Plus the old greens have none of the new textures or flashy bits and no one is begging to give up all their classic character armors for a random green item.

We really want multiple appearance tabs so we can equip more than one outfit and switch at the press of a button.

That's pretty much what I said. And exactly how it works in LotRO.

I am glad this thread was created. I agree wholeheartedly with the OP and most of the sentiment in this thread. With all of the amazing options available from the cartel market armors, it sucks that it is cost prohibitive to actually put them to use and switch them up regularly. I don't know anyone who regularly changes their appearance due to not wanting to go through the pain of spending $1m+ credits to extract augments and install new kits. And that's before you even consider the cost of moving the mods, enhancements and armoring. As the CM and collection system (which I love) grows the available appearance options for players, it would be nice to have the added flexibility. So I could bundle up when heading to hoth, cool off with lighter looking gear on tatooine, wear my house organa stuff on alderaan, etc. I really like the idea of adding an appearance slot to a base "armor set", similar to how the dye system works. That way, you don't ruin any of the credit sinks associated with level progression and gearing and auging. Whether or not this is actually technically feasible, I have no idea. If it's not and you are worried about the consequences of credit sinks during leveling maybe you restrict it to level 55s or something. But I think the main point is, no one is really putting money into the credit sink right now anyway so all of these great designs are going to waste.

I change outfits on 4 different toons monthly, I change out mods, armor and enhancements at least once a week, sometimes more depending on my luck and yet I have over 2 mil on 6 of my toons and 10 mil on a alt. I am not hurting by the current situation and no I don't buy stuff to sell with CC and no I don't craft to sell. I give anyway what I craft to friends and people in my guild. I also pass on gear in all FPs. I make my credit from killing stuff. I do a few dailies and my weeklies and I am rolling in credits. I can even buy the gear I want on the GTN with the credits I make. CCs are for unlocking stuff including collections for alts not for buying fluff (and I like fluff).

What game do you play? 30-40k? LOL!

Swapping a chest piece for your new Cartel Market one would be - removing Armoring, Enhancement, Mod, Augment (at roughly 11k ea.), plus adding an MK-9 slot which costs you around 32k PLUS the cost of the kit (75k)...what game do you play that costs you only 30k?! You can't even add an MK-9 slot for that.

I do not care for the mod removal costs. I think the game has many MANY credit sinks. However, I endure this for now without complaint since the unified comms, which helps quite a bit.

End game mods are expensive. But leveling mods are easy to acquire with little to no cost to do so...the reason why I have multiple outfits on alts.

Eventually I hope to see the end of mod removal costs for subscribers. Then we will see the kind of freedom in appearance I would like to see for this game.