How about giving each major faction its own unique skins/HUDs - even something as simple as a color change in the interface/HUD would help to differentiate which faction you are playing when starting a new pilot.

This would mostly be for new players to give them a better sense that the factions are, indeed, different - it can be hard to tell when first staring off that there are actually three different factions since you fly the same ships and do the same missions with access to the same equipment for much of one's early career no matter where you start. Granted, this is only a cosmetic change but I think it does have a psychological impact on players who are new to the game. Expanding the differences, even the little ones, between factions is a good thing, I would think, especially when the change has no impact on actual gameplay.

Keep the option to use custom skins, of course. VO's customizability is a strong selling point.

Should be easily done for HUD's. We could make a standard "Serco" HUD, a "UIT" HUD, and an "Itani" HUD.

Would be an excellent addition to the game.

*Cough*im working on it*cough*