So I’m a woman and I’ve been playing this game for many many years. It feels like Blizzard has zero self awareness about what their female audience wants. We finally got a single bikini armor bra after asking for what, decades now? Everything we have in the game is moldy and crusty. When will Blizzard wake up and realize that true feminism is by letting us dress like sluts?? I’m very tired of getting all this armor all the time that looks frumpy and dumpy on my toons. I look like a homeless person or like an overly armored war mom that is afraid to show some skin. That’s not true to the lore or the Windrunner sisters at all and it irritates me. All the good armor is old. Please Blizzard. Just make new bikini armor. REAL bikini armor. Gimme a thong and something barely covering my chest. Tyty
As long as Night Elves get it too.
Two aspects going on with this.
1 - I doubt anyone really knows the totality of what the female audience wants. Like any large group of people, it’s not likely to be the same thing.
2 - Even if that was a unanimous request from the player base, blizz is still trying to make up ground from their scandals and would likely steer away from too much of this type of content.
I prefer a 80/20 mix. Mostly legit armor, but some useless beach wear or other cosplay adjacent nonsense.
We also can’t forget: more variants and colors of underwear!!!
The lizards that slept for 10,000 years and the Haranir who make clothes out of plants and reeds have more variants than the original races.
It’s outrageous. 
Female npc night elves: Showing a LOT in their natural “armor”
Player female night elves heritage covers up enough for PG13
yeah honestly, the bikinis, thigh highs, and all the super sought after armor that i used to spend hours grinding is just nonexistent anymore. where’s the updated lofty set? create more of it, don’t just rework it. women love this stuff. there’s plenty of full coverage armor for the women who don’t like to dress like that, but the women who do, we’re getting the short end of the stick.
You sure you’re not a dude?
THEN: omg bikinimail is so sexist, why cant female warriors wear armor like males
NOW: omg bikinimail is so feminist, why do female warriors have to wear armor like males
I also LOVE bikini armor!
In general what I like to do is to hide chest and pants. That gives me the modesty swimsuit, or as I like to call it, “Heritage Bikini Armor”.
Then I find shoulderpads, belts, etc, that match the bikini.
It works pretty well for the vast majority of Races.
Here’s my Human DK for example:
I enjoy wearing fashion I can’t pull off in real life.
The problem with that comparison is that context matters.
Old bikini armor was problematic for two reasons:
1 - It was a bikini for the ladies and full armor for the guys;
2 - It was actual armor, transmog didn’t exist yet.
So if you obtained a piece of bikini armor that was the best piece you had, you were forced to choose between modesty or inferior armor. And that was a problem exclusive to female characters. The boys had no issue.
Modern Bikini armor is different in both regards. It’s skimpy regardless of body-type and it’s usually cosmetic. Even in the rare cases when it isn’t cosmetic, Transmog exists so you can opt out of the Bikini aesthetic. So rather than being forced into a bikini, it’s a choice.
A choice I always make 
It’s more about choice than it is anything else.
More is better than less. More chain, more leather, more plate, more capes, more tassets, more tailcoats, and, yes, more skin if that is what you want.
It’s a fantasy game; you’d think most players want more fantasy.
Frankly, given the appearances on offer in FFXIV and the amount of money that gets spent on them(because they are affordable and not the price of an entire game), you’d think Blizz would be flooding the market with unique cosmetic items for $3 or a set for $10.
Sure, as long as it looks the same on males, like the Mageweave update.
Edit - I am being serious, just realized how sarcastic that looks. I would go feral for more revealing clothes for males. As a pan woman, yes, please. Equal opportunity slutmog.
The image of an Orc or a Kul Tiran in something like that is a bit frightening…
But if that’s the price we have to pay for more skimpy clothes I’ll gladly accept it.
I agree. Male gnomes SHOULD get thongs
Hahahaha nope. You’re never going to get it because the moment Blizzard would attempt to, Twitter virtue signalers would have a hissy fit and call Blizzard sexist, misogynic, etc. It doesn’t even matter if us females want some outfits like that. Just look at the twitch women’s game thing. The women in the tournament chose the cooking game and twitter lost its mind.
That’s the problem.
Paying attention to people who aren’t even part of the WoW community.
Why should I care about what people there say?
Let them explode. 
That’s exactly why I don’t have social media.
The game desperately needs visual diversity, especially with class sets.
The last time the plate wearing classes got sets that showed any skin outside of an elbow was Cataclysm.
That’s absolutely ridiculous.
Yeah, neither of these are problems.
These are precisely the two important points here. The idea of “the female audience” as some kind of monolith is flawed from the outset, as it is for any broad category of identity. Some women enjoy sexy armor as part of their fantasy experience, others don’t, others hate it. There is no satisfying “the female audience” with any blanket armor design directions, because that audience is made up of people with different preferences.
BUT, that was such a problem back at the height of bikini armor in Vanilla-BC because appearances were not choices. You wore what had the best stats, and if you didn’t like it, too damn bad; your only alternative was purposely hamstringing yourself. And since Cataclysm introduced transmog, armor appearance is a choice, and anyone who doesn’t like sexy gear has an easily accessible way to not wear it with no detriment to their effectiveness.
Transmog solved the issue. Give us more sexy mogs; we skimp enthusiasts have been surviving for years now on recycling the same handful of mostly Vanilla-BC chests and legs, and the rare scraps of new items that come along maybe once a season if we’re lucky.