Suggestion to reduce Lag in PvP

One of the strenghts of AO is that you can highly customize your Char regarding how he or she looks and which armor he wears.

But when you meet a bunch of players, your system is forced to load a ton of textures, and, from what i hear, even mega fast systems come to a halt in a mass PvP-Situation.
But this is what Funcom wanted by putting Towers in the game, Mass-PvP!

So if the textures are a part of the problem, why not let players opt in not loading them in a fight situation. While fighting, no one is really interested in seeing the armor configuration of his enemy.

So, what if there were an item in the game, say some sort of scope or goggles which changes the view of players, so that, when put on, they only see a grey human (fex, atrox...) shape as representation for a player.
They could even exist in different forms, allowing some coloring (omni=blue, clan=red) in higher QLs or a coloring according to the level of the player (from grey/green to red)...

Another possibility would perhaps be some sort of "camouflage suit" which comes in the back-location and gives your char a complete unisono look with your fellow attackers. This would be stylish too, if you make a omni and clan uniform, there would be really armies clashing at the towers.
If that suit goes in the "Back"-Location, you will need some nice stats with them, so that people agree to put them on instead of their usual armor there. And to prevent that people run with that uniform piece while fighting mobs, make the boni work only in PvP-Combat.

Any suggestions? Could that work?

[Sorry for my language, i'm not a native english speaker]