May not get to equip every piece you wanted to, but there's going to be a lot more gear released specifically for vanity purposes. 2.2 New Emotes & Vanity Gear
So maybe in the future there will be heavier armors for mage classes. Will have to wait and see. They're always going to be adding new and fancier looking gear. The old gear will probably stay inaccessible because it was designed and released with PVE in mind, not vanity. But with vanity specific gear, I'm sure a lot more combinations will pop up, with outfits more similar to stuff we see on NPCs, around town, or akin to the crafter AF than what is currently in game.
So maybe in the future there will be heavier armors for mage classes. Will have to wait and see. They're always going to be adding new and fancier looking gear. The old gear will probably stay inaccessible because it was designed and released with PVE in mind, not vanity. But with vanity specific gear, I'm sure a lot more combinations will pop up, with outfits more similar to stuff we see on NPCs, around town, or akin to the crafter AF than what is currently in game.