actually I see some people have two of the same kind of backpack or even two tactical vests, one in inventory and one in apparel. Should I restrict their outfits? or not include the vest/pack in the loadout?

Loadout and vanilla apparel outfits are different systems. You should assign any wearables via outfits. Pawns typically won't wear clothes in their loadout unless you force them

thanks, I think I figured it out now, still kind of annoying to manage apparel separately from loadouts when they are somewhat similar systems. I had the tac vests in loadout and also in the outfit which is why it was getting equipped 2x. I took them out of the loadout. I think I initially did create loadout from the pawn menu, which included the vest and packs.

As Zozillin said, the Outfits system is a better way to manage apparel than the Loadouts system, as the former can also be filtered based upon item condition on quality.

Thanks N7H, great work on the mod I'm enjoying my first CE play through after a couple hundred hours vanilla.