Every player looks the same? what about custom gear?

People do look different, especially in the lobbies. In-game its harder to tell because of the pace and the action, but if you stop to inspect some corpses of players you'll see they look different.

The Gold EXO is especially noticeable.

I have FiOS (all be it from Frontier) as well. You are right though, the connection doesn't matter and I have games when it ridiculously swings in my favor. I feel my character just eating bullets, turn around and shoot some poor dude who's now reloading.
I will never buy another Advanced Warefare game, its just not my style (although I think they could easily fix it). As far as another Call of Duty, their going to have to earn my support with the quality of their product. I'm no longer a sheep.

If anybody cares they fixed this. Now your character is playable in Hardcore. Game is still horrible though.

I saw it mentioned that this is a hardcore issue....core players are seeing their cusTom characters...

I don't know about you guys but this is no big deal. I am shooting at them not judging what the hell they are wearing. Lol. Go play the cod barbie edition if that is the case,