I love a good rant, but I think he may have been hinting at the new ability of basics to purchase clothing from the OLD merchants.
On test, basic pirates can buy all clothing now. Not just from the new merchants, but also from the old merchants. On test, basic pirates can purchase ANY crude clothing in any of the bland colors (no brights, darks nor blacks.) No more basics forced to run around in diapers.
There is no explicit warning when you buy an item you can't wear, but those items do say "Unlimited Access Only" in the item description panel thing.
The new merchant system obviously took a lot of effort, but it sure could give better visuals when a purchase is completed. The original (old old old old original) merchant system showed what you had, a lot better. Buying 2 tonics shouldn't take 5 minutes of clicking around to see which one you missed...how about a "give me max of all tonics" button? Or a "repair all ships now dang it" button.
Even better would be a "one-click" button somewhere to buy maximum tonics, remedies, holy waters, elixirs, miracle waters, venom shot, bane shot, hex eater shot, silver shot, steel shot, asp, adder, sidewinder, viper's nest, stink pot, firebombs, smoke bombs, siege charges, chain shot, grape shot, firebrand, thunderbolt, explosive, fury AND repair all ships. Running around for ammo is interesting when you are new, but is a really annoying chore after a few thousand times. Maybe have that button appear only when you have over 120k gold?