With the many awesome transmogs coming into the game over the years and the increasing gold cost per edit, doing any kind of RP or costumization has become annoying and borderline stressful. The fact that you have to reapply a transmog whenever you get a new piece of gear, is way too tedious for a game with such a wide array of transmog options.
Furthermore, since a transmog will sometimes look very different in-game compared to previews, you will often have to make more changes on top of what you already calculated.
If you want to stick with high prices for the sake of gold sinks, I think the only solution would be to bind every transmog to the slot rather than the specific gear piece.
They figured that out in SWTOR early on, where you can now make whole outfits and toggle between them as you please - Regardless of the gear you have equipped.
I think WoW needs a system like that for transmog. Would be a huge quality of life improvement.
Having just finished the Diablo IV storyline (Yes, late to the party), it was nice to see that this is how transmogs work in that game. So the technology/knowhow is obviously there.
When I get new gear, I want to wear it straight away. If I do that, say mid raid, then my character looks a bit silly. So I normally wait until I’m done to visit the transmog NPC to change the appearance and then equip it. How is that a good game design decision?
And before people say it is used as a gold sink, I’d say to find a different way to take gold out of the economy if that is the aim of it, or increase the cost of changing the look of a slot in the first place. They could 10x it or even more and I’d pay it.
It serves as a gold sink in WoW and this is probably the main reason I rarely mog alts. It’s just a prohibitive cost for something I’m not going to play often.