If games needed characters to behave exactly the same with no gameplay differentiation to sell skins then there wouldn't be skins in Dota, or League of Legends, or Overwatch, or any other such hero shooter / hero based game.
In reality having characters in a team based game with specific skills that players will gravitate towards is exactly a way of selling skins and doing so with less effort.
The player will use a particular character more because it suits their playstyle rather than what the situation at the time calls for the team to win.
If a player uses a particular character more they are more likely to purchase a skin.
Instead of providing a variation of a skin for each class they only need to make one skin and set up the coding for one specialist.
Instead of selling a pack of skins that covers all the classes they can sell each skin individually.
Instead of players thinking "hmm this is a pretty cool outfit for so and so team which I can only play on these certain levels" they think "COOL I can deck out Sundance and play my skin on any map".
If anything the fact that the specialists are able to mix more gadgets and weapons than the classes in every other previous game shows that they are moving away from having specific roles and towards a jack of all trades approach ala CoD - one where you can do essentially anything you want with the same character.
Like I've defended aspects of BF2042 but it's pretty plainly obvious that specialists were created specifically to sell more skins.
A reminder for everyone to remain civil and respectful in your discourse even if you disagree.
