The game explains what each section of the menu does. In fact you have to dismiss the message or it will stay on the screen. In that Loadout menu there are 5 tabs: Customize - Shell - Loadout - Vault - Armory. Each tab makes sense and even if the game hadn't explained it, it's obvious what each tab is for.
Sure, there could be more icons within each category of items, but each category DOES have its own icons and it doesn't take long to figure out what is what. The item info could be condensed or shown differently, I agree there.