is it all plate bikini's eventually? or is there some actual cool looking full suits of plate armor?

I'm not too sure, but you can check out the appearance of most armor tiers by visiting the remodel NPC in Velika and then pressing shift+left click to try on the templates.

See here: http://tera-online.cc/gallery/human-fh/

Site is in russian but it has most (all?) of the armor graphics.

by remodeling do you mean you can make x piece of armor instead look like y piece of armor?

Yes. You can try on the templates without buying them using the method I mentioned.

I dunno about everyone else, but if it's not bikini mail it's not worth wearing.