In general I feel that the base fitting of the vehicle should determine its overall tanking style and provide the baseline defenses. Pilot suits are an add on to give it a specific racial flair as well as optimize certain aspects of offense, defense, and utility.

The Rig analogy is pretty good, though you might go as far to say that the vehicle is the T3 Cruiser, and the Pilot suit (subsequently fit with Link Modules) are the sybsystems that modify how the T3 Cruiser performs.

In my vision of vehicles Pilot's being their own class, and supported with a specialised dropsuit.

I would like Vehicle users to begin to consider their vehicle their primary suit by restricting them to Combat Ineffective Dropsuit Options if they want to use their vehicles in competitive levels.

Especially if Embarkment and Disembarkment timers are implemented which I suggest scales off of dropsuit frame size, meaning that larger suit frames take longer to embark and disembark, preventing them from immediately hopping into and out of vehicle to escape what should be our deaths.

Moreover I feel that with a tangible representation in the game vehicle operator would have a mean by which to affirm their chosen role like the other classes.

Any more thoughts here?

NO NO NOT EVER!

Not unless there are dedicated command vehicles that only apply vehicle related buffs to friendly vehicles and dropsuits that apply dropsuit bonuses within a certain radius.

NO restriction to vehicles for this, no availability for non-designated command units.