This is a welcome addition, but I'm not sure if it truly remedies most players' concerns? It seems the original thought was that existing robes (with modifications) could somehow be "invisible" (so that one could receive the mod benefits, while not hiding armor underneath). The epaulette accomplishes the "invisible" part of that, but w/o the mods, what good is the epaulette? At that point, the player would already have to take off the visible, modified, robe. Kind of defeats the [original] purpose, no?
Is there some sort of system to convert existing robes (modified or not) to epaulettes (w/o losing mods, obviously)? That might accomplish the original goal, I believe.
Maybe I am reading it wrong though?