Something always bothered me, but I couldn't put a finger on it until recently, when I started looking at the soldier sprites more closely:
The late-game armor types look too similar.
If the soldier is facing towards the screen, there's actually no way of telling whether he's wearing a Flying Suit or a simple Power Suit. The tell-tale straps we see in the UFOpaedia image simply weren't used for the sprite - probably because it looked weird in low resolution, or maybe because development time ran out.
I also never liked the weird giant-left-eye helmet. While I assume that it was supposed to be some kind of vision enhancer, with the right eye free for aiming the weapon, I simply don't like the looks of it.
Today I re-designed them to my liking... the helmet's eyes were changed to a visor, and the Flying Suit gained a visual element: at both sides of the head, I picked up a graphical element present in the UFOpaedia picture that wasn't used in the sprites. I'm explaining it as a sensor system for flight stabilization. It gives the Flying Suit kind of a "Mecha" look, which wasn't entirely intentional, but I like it.
Tell me what you think about it!
here's the download link:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=493.0;attach=5694