Loadouts are great. They've changed the whole "Hold on, I'm wearing the wrong armor." routine from a 5 minute ordeal into a 5 second triviality meaning other party members have one less reason to think I'm a jerk who is holding everybody up. I don't know how I ever played this game without them.
The one big problem though is that anytime I need to make a change to one I have to essentially junk it and replace it. Anytime I upgrade a weapon, shield, or trinket they get removed from any loadouts they are in and therefor I have to junk and replace them to add them back. Not to mention that anytime I upgrade an armor or helm all loadouts they were in get deleted entirely because the pieces are being treated as missing and being removed from any loadouts they were in and of course I can't just go around without a core component of my body model. So yeah, there too, I have to go remake my loadouts. Heck, I can't even rename a loadout without deleting it and recreating it.
The one saving grace I've found is that if you save a loadout and type in the name of an old loadout it will automatically delete that one for you without even bothering you with a prompt confirming if you want to overwrite it. Even so, if I'm upgrading an essential item that's in every one of my loadouts (like a health pendant for instance) I'm still going to have to equip the defunct loadout, equip the newer version of the old item, save the loadout, retype the old loadout's name, and uncheck PVP 10 times over. That can turn the joy of acquiring newer and better stuff into a chore.
So, solutions?
Really the most basic thing to do would be to add a couple more options to the menu that pops up when you click a loadout.
1. Update: Saves current equipment as whatever loadout you just clicked on. PVP status gets carried over along with the name. No more retyping.
2. Rename: Because why not? No more removing loadouts just because of typos.
The simplest way for the loadout deletion upon armor/helm upgrade problem would be to have the armor/helm slot revert to starter armor instead of just trashing the whole setup.
A more elaborate fix to both the typing and the deletion thing would be to have loadouts get updated automatically upon upgrading an item in them. Stop acting like we just lost an item because we upgraded it.
TL;DR? I'm impatient, cranky, and entitled. Give me a menu option to bypass some typing.
Note that your loadouts will not disppear due to missing a shield or weapon. When you use that loadout you will simply have empty weapon/shield slots.
Your loadouts will disappear only if an armor or helmet is no longer available - most likely because you have upgraded it or sold it. The reason is that knights maybe some kind of robot/cyborg/creature that is never without an exoskeleton that is your armor and helmet. If your loadout's armor/helmet is gone, it cannot be used again, or your knight will be in an invalid state. Perhaps loadouts with missing helmet/armor can be marked as broken instead of removed immediately. While players cannot use this loadout, they can inspect what was in there to create a replacement.
Note that you can overwrite a loadout by saving under the same name.
Update is not really an option in the current system; because as soon as you switch out a single item, it is unassociated with your last used loadout (and is simply regarded as "Current Equipment", the default loadout that is always on).
Rename can be done by simply saving your current loadout under another name, and deleting the original one. An explicit rename would be nice but without it is not a big problem.
If the no. of loadouts allowed is increased, I'd also like to propose a Costume loadout - that only stores your costume items. That would be pretty handy for players who like to keep a set of consistent looks.