Star Wars Galaxies: Why was the new delay for equipping armor put in?

PokinJoo asked the following question and got a reply from Thunderheart (go here to see the original post and TH's response):

Why is there a delay outside of combat when taking armor on and off?? where is the balance problem with this when you are NOT in combat??

The 3 second delay during combat was put in because of the armor and weapon equipping macros. Some of the problems associated with "instant armor" are instances like the Jedi "armor macro" whereby a Jedi could press a single toolbar button that would unequip all of their armor instantly, allow the to then use their force powers and then press that button again and re-equip all of their armor instantly. There are other situations in the game where players were getting unfair heals and weapon advantages because of this.

Bounty Hunters have a particular pain with this because it hamstrings some of their most effective combos. There are other examples of this as well, but the change was necessary. The other aspect to this is that players were using these macros to compenasate for certain combat shortfalls. The right answer for the game is to address those things in the combat balance.