The armor was initially designed for the original version of Emerald Twilight that was rejected by DC Editorial for not being shocking enough. It would have had Hal absorb the power of the Central Power Battery to become an independent agent known as The Protector in order to resolve a civil war between the Guardians of the Universe.
The end result would have been the somewhat same, a young everyman named Kyle Rayner would have become the new Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814, but the Corps would have remained intact and Hal would have become more of a Silver Surfer type character wandering the spaceways, looking for adventure.
However, since this would have been written by Gerard Jones and edited by Kevin Dooley, who clearly did not have a good creative working relationship, it's probably for the best that this didn't happen because we would have been stuck with a couple more years of mediocre GL comics, rather than a couple years of pretty good GL comics that unnecessarily fractured the fanbase.
That costume will never get old precisely for that reason. Both simple and effective.
One of my favorite bits from the Hate Triangle episode of DCSHG was how Jessica simply could make Hal look worse, no matter how much she messed up his glorious hair.