How do you want armor to work in SW:TOR? Like WoW where your constantly changing for newer armor with better stats but looking like you ran through a clothes line? or would you like something new and refreshing?

Im hoping they make it so the player can have the look they want but still have good stats, it would work a bit like this:

players would still loot for armor like normal but their could be a system where you destroy the stronger piece of armor and replace your armors stats with the better destroyed armors but theirs a chance it won't work and the item gets destroyed and no stats changed.

This would encourage raiding for new gear but still giving people the ability to have their own look and still be able to raid/pvp.

I don't like the idea of people randomly losing gear that they already won, but aside from that what I want is pretty much what you said. I was thinking that you could have a set of armour that would be a facade kind of thing, and then another set that would be what you get the stats from (with the ability to turn off the facade armour and just show what you're getting the stats from).

Destroying the gear that had the higher stats but not the look you want is needed so that theirs a bit of a risk of doing it. There could maybe be items crafted that make it so it so that the stats are always transferd but then you gotta make another of the crafted item, this would help economy as they would be in high demand)

I can say this much on the armor in TOR. I don't want any of it to have the HUGE shoulders of WoW's armor. Just look at Paladin Arena Season 8, they're more like horse blinders than shoulderguards:
http://static.wowhead.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/158683.jpg)

I'd personally prefer a system in which stats and aesthetics are entirely separate, allowing for both the stat bonuses and look that the player wants. For example, Guild Wars (post Nightfall), The Chronicles of Spellborn, or The Lord of the Rings Online (after the cosmetic gear update).

I do/would like the option to transfer armor stats to different armor appearances.. but I'd also like the option to customize, paint, decorate (whatever) the armor pieces to make them a bit more personal.

That's one thing I hate about most MMO's is that there are only so many armor looks out there and most high-end/Raid items are identical. Eventually, everyone winds up looking the same or similar.. making it real easy to spot the "raiders" vs casual gamers ;)

However, trying to maintain a wide variety of styles and balancing performance could be a bit of number crunching. Hopefully, with ToR's stylized art, this would be a non-issue.