Elite armor vs normal armor

Whats the benefit of elite armor? Or is it just for show and look?

Pretty much its just for show especially with the nightfall armor being inscribable

Just for show, look, a symbol.
Its often called PRESTIGE armour, for obvious reasons.

Nightfall armor isn't 'inscribable' its insignia-able :P But, they changed that. Now every armor, from what I've seen, is insignia-able. Not sure about FoW.

FoW is too.

The expensive armor is just for looks. After all, the game is about your skill and ability, not the leetness of your equipment that you grind for. Its designed that way for PvP balance.

FoW aswell

I think armor from collectors is still not able to accept insignias.

Max collectors armour can't accept insignias, but the others can. Elite armours are meant to be more detailed than standard armours, but they aren't always better-looking, in my opinion. Still, if you take a character through a campaign, it still feels like a reward to give him/her 15k armour.

In the beginning, players made lots of money but there really wasn't much to spend it on. It wasn't a game like Baldur's Gate et al. where you were constantly buying health and mana potions, single-use spell scrolls, ranged ammunition, etc.; the few weapon smiths all sold the very same basic set of weapons, unlike BG's smiths who always had a randomly spawning variety to choose from where you would trade up your weapons for slightly better ones; constantly impoved armors from the armor smiths; magical rings and amulets.

Once you got that max set of armor in GW, aside from buying nice weapons from other players, there just wasn't any need to spend any of that money you were making. The prestige armors were a way of giving people something to spend that cash on.

Later on, they replaced the free treasure chests with the present locked ones which require keys to open and introduced various other forms of "gold sinks".

the community adopted term in inscribable. insignia-able may be more gramatically correct, but if everyone else is saying inscribable your the one that ends up sounding uneducated.

Nobel Peace prize, Right there...

This answer ties into your other question on being level 20.

You are probably used to the idea of doing something (grind normally, but maybe not) to become better. GW, for the most part (some of the new PvE only skills break this), is not that way. Nearly everything that affects the game is very easy to max, after that it is all just playing the game.

You should reach your maximum mechanical capability VERY quickly in nearly all respects. However it will take a while to know several professions, their related skills, and how to play/counter them easily (otherwise known as "skill based", not "level based"). Armor, weapons, and level are easily maxed out with VERY casual play. You should also be able to have two or three builds ready quite easily too.

This also generally frees one to focus on the other aspects of the game as you are no longer focused on simply leveling up or getting better equipment. Though, obviously, if becoming "uber" by grinding more than others is your thing best to go elsewhere - but then there are quite a few other games that fill that particular niche VERY well.

GW is something a little different for online RPG's and fills an otherwise untapped niche. Here grind is mostly for show, there are now some skills that get more powerful with grind and for flexibility outside of those first three or four builds (which is all most PvE'ers will use).