crown store has preview so it's just ZO$ being lazy
Yep. Just another good example of how B2P and F2P systems work against the general good of the game. A feature is added but only if it's tied to cash shop purchases. Even something that is standard fare in most other MMOs can't or won't be added without direct monetary compensation. Coming soon...thread where some duma will ask for previews to be added to the crown store for purchase a la carte with tokens or some other stupid nonsense.
It would be amazing if they would add this. Currently I have a few sites bookmarked that offer some previews, but it is not ideal having to minimize the game to pull up a website before crafting and try to find a nice style. However, I would be okay with that if any one site was complete... but thus far there is a lot out there that isn't included on the sites, and I'm not even talking about newer styles. There are a lot of lower level sets missing from sites also. I generally have to resort to crafting a whole pile of stuff and trying it on, which is a waste of materials.
Also, it would be nice to be able to preview how pieces from different styles would look together, which you can't get from the websites. It might be a bit of work, but it would be great if they just made a new window you could pull up specifically for previews, in which you could select the item + style + refine level etc, and it would show it on your character. Then you could switch out gear pieces that look horrible and come up with a set you really like.