I do like the idea of easily obtainable armours for some situations. For example, you may not be one for leveling at all but enjoy the aspect of RP in AO immensely. After spending time creating depth in your character, if you're not exactly well equipped it becomes difficult to create a good look if the character role includes some perhaps more difficult to obtain armour and equipment.
I do understand the frustration for those who've spent time and effort to earn it the long way, and I appreciate that. But there's also benefits to this new implementation in that characters designed purely to progress a player-run event for example would look more believable in their roles due to an appropriate outfit that a low level could obtain.
The availability of armours could benefit the immersion as well as destroy it. As for the roleplaying community, I'm pretty confident we know roughly where to draw the line and what outfits would be most appropriate for our characters, so I see no real negative impact on roleplay if you're playing with those you know and are comfortable with.
After all, I think we're pretty used to pretending the thongs and panda helmets don't exist when we see the non-roleplayers wandering about.