Yeah I don't like the helmet at all, personally. I know there's a lot of FO2 fans who love it, but I hate the aesthetics of it, in both FO2 and NV.
It grows on you. Seriously, I wasn't a big fan of it when I first played Fallout 2 either, and now it's one of my favorite armors in the series. I think the important thing to remember is that the helmet was designed to look like a high tech metal gas mask, no more no less.
I'd rather have the Enclave FO3 armor at least be in the game alongside the FO2 armor, as I find it aesthetically superior. But, if it can't be, I'd like the FO2 APA to be as intimidating and large in NV as it was in FO2; the body of the armor itself just looks decidedly uninteresting at the moment. Plus, the massive hunchback directly behind the helmet is utterly nonsensical, it looks specifically designed to catch bullets and ricochet them directly into the back of the wearer's cranium. <_<
I'm hoping that they lowered the back quite a bit in the final product since it's way too big; it wasn't that big in Fallout 2.