I've heard two requests from the community and figured there may be a way to address both.
Request 1 - Character loadouts
Request 2 - More character slots
ZOS has made no mention on Request 1, but has eluded in a recent interview that Request 2, new character slots are not coming due to database constraints.
I'm in the camp for Request 1 personally, and I'd be more than happy with 6 robust characters that can change skills, attributes, cp, gear, and even racials (i'll get to this) on the fly. The solution I have would actually result in reducing the database of characters, freeing up slots for others that prefer quantity.
So, I have a DK Tank (Nord), and a DK mDPS (Breton). I hate questing on my DK Tank, and don't care for the time it takes to do dungeons (que) on my mDK. Ideally, I'd like to be able to roll both of them together and be able to switch their loadouts at the press of a button.
How it would work is, I choose a primary character (Nord) and a sacrifice character (Breton). Azura gives the Breton his soul back, but he died, so upon receiving his soul he has a normal death leaving behind an essence which my Nord absorbs, allowing for him to have the option to switch to Breton passives. My Breton is now dead, deleted, no longer on the server and my Nord now occupied 2 character slots. I can add 1 more if I wish, 3 characters per class = 18.
My Nord and Breton progress, achievements, quests, sky shards, skill tree xp etc are now merged, any conflict in decisions made with questing priority would go to the Nord. My Nord can now choose between morphs without needing to go to a shrine, for free, so he can swap his entire build around when needed.
There are many things to consider such as, my Nord would now have daily writs that cost twice as much, but earn twice the gold and 2 drops. He should gain 100 inv slots and 20 (40 ESO+) bank slots to make up for the lost inventory potential. For standard dailies that should remain the same. Crafters would probably prefer this as they would only need to log between 6 characters rather than 18 to do writs.
RP'ers may like it too if they bore of a certain character and want to give it a funeral. Probably wouldn't want to do it with all characters mind you.
This could also facilitate the class change system some have advocated for. Have a DK but want to turn him into a Necro? Make a Necro, make him the primary and merge your DK with the Necro, obviously nothing DK specific will merge, but all the motifs, recipes, quests, achievements, progress, skill points will. Necro class skills would be unaffected.
The end result is
Request 1 - Players can now build more robust characters suitable for many roles, and have build loadouts including changing skills, cp, att, gear, and even racials.
Request 2 - As players that favor Request 1 start to reduce their character sheet down to 6, or at least reduce it somewhat, this frees up slots that ZOS can then sell on to other players that want even more characters.