Tailoring: Coverage and Value.
Should not correlate.

This makes sense from a mechanics, balance and economic point of view as well as a realism one (I know realism doesn't tend to hold much weight in these discussions.). It also takes no less creative energy for a player to make a pair of boots versus a jumpsuit and it can be galling to see the resulting values penalised because the boots you were asked to make only covered two body parts as opposed to a jumpsuits twelve.

Interested to hear what other players think on this.

I think of learning how to create smartly configured outfits that provide specific desirable shortdescs and qualities as being the player skill side of tailor gameplay.

Personally I see that a feature to encourage keeping item counts down in outfits, but it only applies to a point: Experimenting with one-piece outfits will pretty quickly show their drawbacks.

Average Skirt/Blouse 150-400 each

Average dress ranges wildly from fifty dollars to thousands, though the majority of their standard brand line seems to be between 50-250.

I'm not a RL tailor, but I would assume single large pieces are cheaper than multi piece outfits for at least two reasons.

1. More seams + More hems = More time and effort

Like most things, you're usually paying more for labor cost than material.

That said, maybe the average baka doesn't know these things (hell, I don't know for sure. This is hypothesized based on five minutes of research).