damn I have completely ignored those maybe I'll check them out later

They only give you cosmetic items... but if you're the kind of person who likes to see more skin on your Xenoblade characters, they're for you.

I have done everything now in the main game. Every side quest. Colony 6. Story. Now I have no reason to go back to my Wii original copies.

Started Future Connected. Been wanting to explore the shoulder since it was hacked years ago. I only have one let down about the main story.

When you're into guys, that option is available from the get-go. You set everything to Ecru type and voilà!

You can strip Sharla down, but Melia is pretty reserved.  Maybe they didn't want to get the censors on their back for showing so much skin on a girl who looks like she's 15, which is ironic since she's the oldest character on your team.

Frankly, I didn't even have to go out of my way to get my female characters showing plenty of skin, it just kinda happened as the game progressed and I just kept equipping the armor with the best stats, it was like an ongoing game of strip poker.

To its credit, at least its equal opportunity, with Shulk, Reyn and Dunban also looking like they were gearing up for some beach volleyball by the late game.

Weirdly I never found it distracting, probably cos the game gets so out there in every other way that the absurd costumes just kinda gel with the whole surreal vibe of it all.

Fucking Lorithia. Great way to ruin the momentum of the ending chapter. Fuck this hoe!!!!

You can just choose the cosmetics anyways separate from the armor stats themselves, so it's not a big problem (maybe you couldn't do that in the original, idk). 

Lorithia has a specific weakness; pick Melia, spam her with ether attacks and watch her drop like a pterodactyl turd.

Problem wasn't really party set up (though yea I did look up tips on that front as well, and like you said Melia definitely helped), the issue was moreso that I entered the area at about level 68, and she really didn't seem manageable until about ~73. Which wouldn't be much of a problem, but I found grinding took a surprising amount of time. And grinding in that area was just awful, all the easy enemies gave you little XP, all the hard enemies were in areas where you could easily fall down to an acid pool or have another enemy get into your line of sight (even if you try not to, since the fliers have a very large path of travel). It took too long and was kinda annoying, but it's fine. 

It's okay though, I beat her 15 minutes ago. Like you said, with the right party, and with characters leveled up she's quite easy. Everything is really manageable in this game if you know what you're doing.