sqorgar, i can see where you are coming from, and the identification issue is real. the hats, not shown here on the away-facers, will hopefully help a lot. Im most likely going to tweek any number of things before the project is done, too.
but there are several things that you havent rally taken into acount.
Firstly, the uniforms must all be the same color in one army, because they are professional soldiers fighting under the name of the person whos personal heradry they are boasting, in this case red and blue. this is mostly because when i play a tactics game, my first question is not "is this guy a wizard?" but rather, "is this guy mine, his, his, his, or just in a very bad pot?" the men fighting with you will all wear your colors, but the men fighting under an npc will wear his colors. rag-tag groups, such as will occasionally be encountered, will have randomly generated colors for each mans outfit, making them appear as though they are not in uniform(which in that case is proper). to add to the individuality, every man in the game has a randomly generated combination of skin and hair colors (not pictured in the example) as well as hair types, making it very easy to find a familiar individual on the field
Secondly, several classes look the same because they are embellishments upon the preceding class, and anyone who is playing the game will know exactly what job types build into which. There are, in reality, 8 job types, with 4 lower levels, 8 regular levels, and 8(16) master levels with each pair being roughly equal in strenth and duty (though with slightly differing skill sets based on their creed). For example, the warrior, knight, paladin, and crusader are all hard-hitting straight-forward attackers, and this is rather easy to see in the set i think, you look for guys who have armor and who may also have shields. At the very least, the player will know that when they have a warrior, a guy that looks an awful lot like their warrior will most likely be or act a lot like their warrior. Even at the most basic level, you will still be able to guess, based on costume, which person is going to hit, which is going to shoot, and which are going to be mainly support, and if you cannot do this, please let me know. Even in the case that a person cannot tell at all what someone is supposed to do, they can always hover over the character and the information will tell them.
third, you say put nine men out? at least for this game, nine men is a crazy number for one team. most teams will have a leader, between 2 and 5 soldiers, and 0-5 Constructs (which are robots for the mechanists, demons for the alchemists). i also tried what you said, with far too many soldiers, and i could instantly identify them even from behind (when they all had hats on), and even though im the artist and have looked at them for a while, i doubt the player would have any trouble either once they have played the game for enough hours to have different job types.
anyhoo, i your taking the time, but much of what you said simply doesnt apply to this project so far as i can see. perhaps i am wrong in thinking this?
also, does anybody have any crits about the pixelart itself, aside from the design?