Although I agree that a form fitting ghillie suit variation would be more effective than a cloak, I don't think that's what Brandon had in mind. Building a mistcloak as described in the quote on page 1 of this thread would give a near normal cloak look when the wearer was stationary (assuming no wind), so my cloak certainly doesn't fit Brandon's vision either.
A ghillie suit would blend in much better in Terran foggy conditions than a mistcloak if it had sufficiently long tassels. Of course, it was my understanding that the mistcloak was more for intimidation than camouflage. Unless the mist behaved more erratically than I think it did.
Problems with ghillie suits:
- Somebody can grab a tassel and yank you back or stab you with a knife: Game Over. Unless you design the tassels to break away with a certain amount of force. You'd have to make this as close to the force a tassel would normally receive from high wind speeds and fast changes in direction or someone could just grab a handful of tassels and you're stuck anyway. I don't think that the strength needed for tassels in the wind would be low enough to allow for an easy escape by this method. Cloaks avoid this by being easy to remove. At one point in the book, Vin drops her cloak when someone grabs it.
- They are hot and heavy.
- It would be very difficult to affect the flow of the tassels (if you're trying to remain unseen while stationary in a cloak, you can hold the tassels or something similar).
- Cloaks look cooler when wind is in play.
If those problems could be properly addressed, a ghillie suit would be superior in every way to a cloak.