I personally think that once a gem store skin has been purchased, it should be unlocked for the entire account and can be applied an unlimited number of times, similar to skins unlocked through the hall of monuments or the zenith items.
Recently, I purchased some Toxic items, but I have some problems with the way skins are being handled now:
- I do not know how many alts I will have in the future that I want to use this skin for, so I was forced to really buy a lot of them
- I think 400 gems for a single-use, single-slot item is a bit expensive (spending 30 bucks for 3 sets, just to make sure I have enough of them in the future is madness)
- Each skin item takes up a storage slot, so I was forced to purchase an extra bank tab to store the items for future alts to use
- If I ever want to change anything in my gear (hello ascened armor), then I need to purchase additional transmutation stones just to move the skins around, which I think is unreasonable for gem store skins already paid for
While I’m sure that ArenaNet knows how desperately we want a wardrobe to store our skins in, gem store or not, this takes quite a long time to implement.
A quick fix I’d suggest for gem store items is simple: The item that applies the skins should simply NOT be consumed upon use, so the skins can be applied an infinite number of times similar to the HOM and zenith skins.
Of course I’d love this fix to be retroactive, but ArenaNet could simply do this for all future gem store skins instead.