Agree that:
- It's great to be able to equip townies now.
- It really serves a purpoes (I just faced my first barbarian raid in the 1.014 patch... YIKES!)
- It's too tedious to not just equip them, but to remember who needs what equipment.
What we have is better than nothing, but I don't think the current system is quite usable (edit for clarification: at the speed at which most of my hard level towns run, I don't have the time to dress each towns person, even when I use the pause... it adds too much running around in town.)
My favorite on the list above is some form of for the town stash, where I can stash and forget equipment that I want to donate to the town. It can be the sort of drop box that once I drop the equipment in, it's gone for good, no getting it back. If the town was smart enough to cycle equipment that I dropped into this stash on its own, I wouldn't need to play dress up with the towns people (although I still want to make Din wear a dress to get him back for this "curse"
).