Most of us want to gain rep with factions other then vanguard/crucible, so wearing non-faction class items isn't worth doing even if they look good.
we need some form of item attachment to apply rep to class items to choose a faction we want rep with when turning in bounties, strikes, nightfall, patrol, etc. maybe use an exotic shard every time you want to change it
i haven't seen a single person wearing the class items from variks, because there is no reason to even if you like the appearance, most people want DO, NM, FWC rep
and adding these exotic class items wont change the problem, it will just make the problem worse by adding cool looking things that really aren't worth wearing because they don't give rep.
sure you can always swap to faction items right before the +Rep triggers, but that gets tedious very fast.
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Would be cool if emblems did this