If you are really that committed to making it work, you could always learn how to use something like blender (which is open, free, and will let you edit meshes all day long). Then you can just edit any of the hair choices you know you'll never choose, and stick the new mesh there.
Creating meshes is not a problem, I already know how to use both Blender, as well as 3DS Max and even a few other misc. 3D programs. Creating the mesh is easy. I'm actually pretty good at making full character meshes as it is; for example here's one I made a while back for an as yet unfinished 3D fighting/Beat 'Em Up game:
(Lower poly than I'd like, but it's a rough 3D doodle that I modeled "free style" without references for the hell of it...)
The part that I can not do at all, however, is export it from the 3D software into the correct format so that the CoH engine can read it, because I don't have a plugin to export to that format, and it's not supported natively by 3DS Max, or by Blender, I don't believe.
So unless someone outside of the now defunct Paragon Studios and NCSoft has or knows how to make a magical working .geo import/export plugin for Blender or 3DS Max, I can make all the meshes in the world, but I'll never be able to add them into this engine until such a plugin is found/made. Highly unlikely, since I think the .geo file format was a proprietary file type that Cryptic made specifically for their engine when they were first making the game, and recreating that from scratch would be a stretch. Besides, I know diddly about making import/export plugins...
Of course if you create your own custom meshes then no one else in the game/chat will ever see them. Well, except for people you convince to install the same mod. There were allegedly "naked" texture mods for CoH early on. i say allegedly because i never bothered to investigate, but i'm going to say that Rule 34 definitely applies here. Obviously no one but the player using the mod saw it, but i guess it has an appeal for some people.
There's a way to make it so everyone sees the mods/textures/models(if the above mentioned required plugin is ever made) easily, and it's actually not hard in itself. You just hand the new stuff off to the appropriate people with access and have them upload it onto the server where everyone's downloading the I24 client from through Tequila, and it'll download the files automagically. The real question though, is if it's possible to trick the engine somehow into letting us add additional costume options instead of simply overriding existing ones. Unless that could be done, any quasi-official mods would likely not be put onto the Tequila server, and would remain as optional downloads that people would need to intentionally add themselves if they want to actually see them.
And yes, I can confirm that the "naked" texture mods did in fact exist. I downloaded one of them post-shut down from an old old OLD CoH mod site mostly out of curiosity and tried it out in Icon... It was pretty terrible actually, so I'm not sure why anyone would have actively used them... It was almost like looking at a horrible nude drawing done by a blind 2 year old...
