How about this: We're able to customize and upgrade our proto armor. I remember an old thread by (I think) Zeddy talking about a new way to craft items using special orbs such as a piercing orb or a freeze orb. I don't remember the thread, so I'll link to that later if Zeddy doesn't beat me to it.

On to the topic, I will be basing it off of Zeddy's idea. Here's how it's gonna work. There's gonna be a special alchemy machine (yes, ANOTHER one) with recipes for your own proto armor pieces. Orbs are gonna be dropped by monsters. For example, Gremlins and Constructs are gonna drop Magic Orbs with elemental defense, Beasts and Slimes are gonna drop Spiked Orbs with piercing defense, and Fiends and Undeads are gonna drop Dark Orbs with shadow defense. Status Orbs, obviously, will be dropped by status variants of the monsters. Stun Orbs will be dropped by Lumbers. Curse Orbs will be dropped by Carnavons and Almirian Shadow Guards.

On to the recipes. ... ah, here we go. You start off only able to use a Defense Orb. You can only use that defense type for each subsequent upgrade. In the 2* upgrade, you can now add Status Orbs. Of course, you'll also need alchemy orbs to craft stuff. You can only add one Defense and two Status Orbs, and you can stack different status types as well.

For the Alchemy Lines, it's pretty simple. For example, I have the Spiral Crescent Helm and Flak Jacket, Toasty themed. The theme doesn't change, and the design doesn't at first, but they will be named as such:
0* Spiral
1* Apprentice
2* Soldier
3* Knight
4* Elite
5* Vanguard

At the 5* upgrade, you'll need 2 Defense Orbs, 2 Status Orbs, and 3 Eternal Alchemy Orbs. At this upgrade, the armor can either change to look like it's dire form (ie Draped Armor becomes Scale Armor, Pith Helm looks like Icebreak Helm, etc.) or stay the same in appearance. Also, during all the upgrades, the normal defense will level similarly to the Ignition set at 1*, then the Cobalt line at 2*+.

I know this has a lot of detail going into it, but it's still a derp-gestion. I mean, you can make the most OP armor set for FireStorm Citadel with shadow defense and fire protection, just get the attack speed from UVs and shtick. On another note, we need to get free Winterfest stuff ON Christmas Day.