Has there been much coverage on the armor customization system? I'm hoping I can still be the vain and ostentatious Mesmer I've always been.
Yep, which form are you talking about? Stats or aesthetics? I'll just layout both for you lol, gimme a sec.
Aesthetics:
There's 400 dyes in the game, all individually and uniquely named. Smaller armor like gloves have 1 dye channel, larger armor like chest pieces have 3 and sometimes even 4 dye channels. Armor is broken up into 3 weight classes (light/medium/heavy). There's no profession specific armor, you'll never see something only a Guardian can wear, but not a Warrior. So you can take any say heavy chest piece in the game, use a Transmutation stone and transfer the stats onto another chest piece so you can look exactly how you want.
Stats:
Every piece of gear in the game has 1 mod slot, even grey items.
Here's how the mod system works:
Armor - Runes
Weapons - Sigils
Accessories - Jewels
Runes allow you to create custom set bonuses, so depending on how many of X rune you have in your gear will dictate your set bonus, for example:
Superior Rune of the Afflicted
1. +28 condition damage
2. +15% bleed duration
3. +55 condition damage
4. +15% poison duration
5. +100 condition damage
6. You create a death nova when you go down. (cooldown: 30 sec.)
or
1. +25 power
2. 5% to cause your next attack to steal life when hit. (cooldown: 15s)
3. +50 power
4. your next attack after using your heal skill steals life. (Not in)
5. +90 power
6. You become mist when your below 10% health. (cooldown: 60s)
and so on.
Sigils are mods for your weapons which also have 1 slot each, here's an example:
you are healed each time you kill a foe
or
30% chance to cause a lightning strike on critical hit (cannot happen more than every 5 sec)
or
your next attack after swapping to this weapon combat steals some life
or
+5% damage
Jewels are more like flat stat increases:
+25 Toughness
+15 Healing
+15 Vitality
Combine the rune system, sigil system, and jewel system with the combat system, the many weapons you can choose from, healing/utility/elite skills, traits and cross profession combos and you're looking at depth that not enough people seem to realize even exists.