Jesse is the uniform guru around here...I'll ask him to weigh in
I've been tied up the last week with stuff and not had a chance to chime in, and I didn't actually read the entire thread because there's a lot of pages to go through and I'm just now getting on here at 12:30. Blah.
As far as the character it's weird... the shoulders clearly have the Imperial Logo and no rank, which I tend to lean that the figure's intent was to be what ultimately turned out (IMO) to be Imperial Gunners sans the armor/helmet... Or any other guy who wears the black jumpsuit with shoulder logos for that matter, but without his typical helmet/armor.
There are some Imperial Bridge Crewmen on destroyers in the black jumpsuits with shoulder patches and black kepi hats as well.
But the first time that Imperial uniform surfaced was in A New Hope... The guys tracking the escape pods from the Tantive IV, are actually the first time they show Imperials in black jumpsuits... Can't see any rank badges. That's where the theory came up though that those are maybe Gun crewmen just without the fancy helmets (manning a different type of cannon perhaps, that requires less hardware for the crewman to wear, or whatever).
Then there's the bridge crew and the Death Star guys standing at attention too.
Then there are "Death Star Troopers" on Endor, working the shield generator, who sport the DST helmet but wear the black jumpsuit (could be just coveralls for a possibly more grimey job than the DST's we see manning posts on the Death Star itself).
Then by contrast the "Imperial Commanders" in black tunics we see in the movies do seem to all have rank badges and the tunic/jadgpur combination, and no shoulder logos (they're listed in EU as "Stormtrooper Officers"). Nobody in the tunics have that actually, just the guys in jumpsuits be they grey or black.
The "skirt" thing makes it look more like the generic "Imperial Commander" name, but the shoulder emblems and lack of detail on the body (to look like a tunic) imply that he's more that "Technician/Gunner" outfit.