So it basically sounds like they're using a system similar to Destiny's shaders in Infinite. Same general concept, each shader has a set of pre-determined colors and materials that makes your gear look different depending on which one you use.
The question I have is, will they be like Destiny 1's shaders, or Destiny 2's? In D1, you could only apply a single shader to your entire armor set, so if you didn't like how it looked on part of your gear, you had to suck it up or swap to something new. But in D2, they made improvements to let you mix and match shaders on gear, so you could create a more complex look. It also let you apply shaders to weapons, ships, Sparrows, and Ghosts as well, which further increased customization options.
If it's like the former, and you can only change your entire armor set to a particular shader, then yeah, that'll suck. But if it's the latter and you can change what shader is applied to each part of your armor, then from personal experience, it won't be quite so bad as long as there's a large variety of shaders to choose from. D2 has about 300 shaders now, and players have come up with some interesting designs by mixing and matching. Some are beautiful:
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And others are...beautiful in their own way:
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I know I'd personally prefer to have complete control over color schemes, but Destiny's shown that even with limitations, there's still a lot of options for customization. Again, the most important thing they need to clarify is whether you can change colors for each piece. If not, then yeah, that'll suck. In Halo 3, with 30 options for three different color areas, there were 27,000 total color possibilities before even getting into armor permutations. There's no way 343 would be able to produce anywhere near that many shaders.
