Cosmetics are just cosmetics, it's clear. The items and achievements that you obtain through your "adventure" do not give you any bonus that might affect your performance in game, that's clear too. Your game experience/expertise is the only "skill" that you can virtually upgrade thanks to the time you spend in game, and that's good, that's SoT.
However, cosmetics are really a lot, and the very next item that you obtain, do not give you almost anything, just a +1 to your vanity chest. In long term speaking, new cosmetics tend to be useless.
But... what about if some of them, maybe the rarest ones, might give you a little bonus for some specific aspects not involging the ability of doing tasks. I mean a small bonus in terms of "time", specifically the time needed to raise levels of emissary flags. More or less you did the same with the possibility to buy resources at the outposts. You are not buying resources, you are buying "time".
Think about the possibility to gear up some particulare clothes/tools/sets that give you a small boost on emissary flag level raising when you take specific treasures (affinity to various trading companies), or maybe when you pick treasures in a particular zone of the world (affinity to regions). The same applies to ship cosmetics that give you bonus when you store items on the ship. You can rank "affinities" of the items (low/medium/high) and consequently scale the "points" needed to raise the levels of emissary flags.
This might:
- increase the need to buy different cosmetics with various affinitties, (depending on what you will do in your session, you might want to change your gear cosmetics);
- give an incentive to raise a flag (less time to farm levels with the proper item affinity).
No impact on game performances of pirates, just on the time spent during their game session, and maybe on the "hunger" of new items to equip. But, having "good" time is the priority, I think.
