Being Batman

They say that you need to walk a mile in someone else's shoes to be able to see things from their perspective.

In researching the dark knight, I came upon various wonderful things, such as this map of Gotham.

Notice where Wayne Manor (and the Batcave) is located. Batman is a bridge commuter!

When comic book artists design superhero costumes, practicality is not something that they keep in mind. I'm convinced that if superhero creators realized just how noisy vinyl and latex is they wouldn't dress "stealthy" characters like Catwoman in so much of it. Also, the dexterity involved in being able to do fine work with your hands is limited with gloves on -- I would hope that Bruce Wayne has his UI designer keep that in mind. The cowl, with the ears adding a good 2 to 3 inches of head clearance could be problematic for driving and ducking doorways, and peripheral vision in a cowl is severely limited.

Capes are a liability. We all saw the Incredibles -- they get caught on all sorts of unfortunate things, and if your cape is too long, you just might trip and fall over when chasing a criminal over the rooftops of Gotham. Batman's cape seems to also change length and width depending on what he's using it for.

On the plus side of capes are that capes covers the butt, and can also be used as a blanket (and looks pretty darn menacing).

Boots in principle are a good idea; combat boots would be very effective, if not for the shoelaces (same liability problems as capes), which have the bonus of being hard to tie quickly because of the gloves.