I'd say it's more accurate to say that the system decided that it didn't want players to look like MMORPG characters and instead want them to look like anime characters (since this is anime, after all), but whatever..

I took that move as having 2 reasons:

1) The creator wanted the players to act more like themselves (whether or not their "real" selves are more like real people or anime people.

2) For the (fake couple) lulz.


edit: I guess as a third point, it just goes to show how far the creator's hacked their NervGear to convince players that he's got enough control to fry their brains IRL.