Pretty outfit. I am a bit puzzled by your comment regarding the shoes. I took a look at the original outfit and did notice the high heeled shoes.  I added this item to my wishlist.

1.  "then re-surface for other than those Standard basic textures, i.e. PBR" - Shaders are the quickest way to do anything.

2. It is fairly easy to create  a normal map if a person feels the outfit needs one.  I use ShaderMap to create anything other than a basic bump map or transparency map.

3. "I didn't like the "shoes" anyway, but did like the lacings"-  In a case like this I would create a transparency map to hide the actual foot part of the shoe and then apply  shoes I want my model to wear? Might even consider hiding the straps/lacings just to give the outfit a different flair.

I like the crown, the belt, and the shoes in the promo. They are made to work as a set and they are very pretty.