Whar ill say right now might be rubbish, but here it goes:
How about merching all the VIP Items' stats into one super-tabard or shirt, and choose additional weapons for damage. This way, players will get the chance to choose their own gear from retail. Because i know there is some beautiful gear out there, and maybe you could do the exact same thing for non VIP gear, and generally all gears with enhanced stats. So, instead of having 15 items with (for example) 1000 stamina/dps/agility/intellect etc., you can have one shirt with 15000.
I had seen one gm (im not going to call out any names) who was wearing one of these super-shirts. So why not let players have something like that as well?
I know its pretty radical and it most probably wont work, but it was worth the typing :P