His equipment didn't bother me too much. Alot of goalies used massive equipment, and he was just one of many.
Pulling up some shots of Giguere from 2003 to get a sense of how ridiculous his pads really were
One of the photos that I think gets referenced a lot is this one:
Where he does look enormous, but that might just be a cherry picked angle.
Another shot makes him look far more reasonable:
But most angles still show him as inflated by equipment to some degree:
Some of this is just the 12" pre lockout pad width compared to 11" standard now. The chestie is undoubtedly giving him a lot of area when the line of his shoulders is level with his eyes. Even though his head is projecting forward a bit in his stance, theres no way thats natural unless hes a hunchback. The blocker and trapper dont appear that ridiculous by pre lockout standards, when you compare it to monstrosities like this
and this
(hey we couldnt have a thread complaining about goalie equipment sizing without picking on Snow at least once)
But really none of Gigueres setup is all that bad when compared to modern goalies going with +3 and +4 thigh rises:
Look at where Bishops knees are in the pad compared to Giguere, its not even close. When he drops down into the butterfly, there is no five hole anymore. That matters a hell of a lot more than losing 20-30% on glove area, or an inch of rise from the shoulder floaters.