I largely agree. I think there should be a meta 0 BPO for each infantry weapon and tech 1 suit (e.g. light/medium/heavy; NOT necessarily tech 2 ones like scout, logistics, etc.). This lets people experiment in an actual fight and learn what they enjoy without too much risk. Vehicles, obviously, should be left as is: just the basic LAV BPO (though i'd support an unarmed meta 0 dropship with a CRU, since it would help vary tactics and encourage more teamplay beyond just the zergling rush of following the other blue dots).

The larger improvement, i think, would be to add a firing range like the one found in the original PlanetSide. In PlanetSide, you could enter a virtual firing range in which, regardless of your skills, you could request any suit, weapon, piece of equipment, etc., and try it out against stationary target dummies with identical stats to the various armours and vehicles in the game. There was another section that let you try any vehicle, to get a feel for how it and its weapons felt. This would, obviously, eliminate the issue of people not trying things because of the isk/sp investment, not to mention giving people a taste of something to strive and work towards to use in an actual fight. Remember, these are not mobile bots, like in UT99, but literally stationary target dummies for you to try things against and get a feel for their handling and effectiveness (i.e. no fun to play in itself, but invaluable in making choices and not having to figure things out with 1m ISK on the line in a fight).