I bet a lot of people would like that re-activated.Id rather buy my own equipment then be given the default equipment.Just a suggestion.
Hmm....I may be wrong, so don't hold me to it, but I think that since you would have to make at least 2 interface changes (adding a merchant window to the char creation process, and adding a "store" button to the char create interface), this would take some serious .exe modification, since as far as I can tell actual interface calls are handled by the .exe If those 2 things could be overcome, I don't think it would be too much trouble, as altering starting money and equipment are doable. Maybe one of the people around here with real coding skills would know more, but it sounds like a lot of work to do.
Actually, the start-game store is an actual location with a bunch of merchants in it (I haven't tested any of it, but it IS a map) so all you'd have to do is to make it so that characters do not have any equipment aside from their clothes and some money at the beginning. They will spawn in this location and buy stuff from the merchants according to their liking. And when they are done, they talk to an NPC to start their vignette which gives them 'access' to the vignette based on their party alignment. Sounds pretty easy, but don't ask me to implement it