Wasn't the suit originally a stormtrooper revamp?
Well... essentially. First off, thank you for this. Secondly, originally there was to be a team of commando troopers, 'super troopers', and they did actually make six of them. Then Lucas decided to do bounty hunters instead, and the suit would be for one unique character. Joe Johnston did one with the slice on the dome and painted the damage on it.
This was also the helmet used for Boba's first public appearance, the 1978 San Anselmo parade:
It was decided he'd have a dent rather than the slice and the dents were added to the other five helmets. They then sent three of the helmets, along with that one, to California where Sandy Dhuyvetter at Daydream Studios painted them in the same style.
Possibly the most famous of them is the Prepro helmet:
This one was photographed the most and used for marketing, such as on Kenner's original Fett card. These helmets were then used on publicity tours, and one of the others was used in ROTJ. The one above went missing and has since been found in a private collection.
The "Eyes" helmet with the slice also went missing, but the suit used in ESB was one of the ones Johnston kept and painted himself. He did two helmets that are almost exactly the same and one was used in ESB, and later again for the ROTJ:SE scenes.
With ESB, they were setting Boba Fett up to be a formidable villain, and someone they would have to face off against in Episode 6, then 7-9 would establish a new character when Luke split off to search for his lost sister, then they all defeat Vader in 8, and the Emperor in 9, or the other way around, I can't remember now. But Boba Fett and Jabba were to be the big villains for 6 until Lucas's divorce when he decided he didn't wanna do these anymore and just crammed it all into one movie.
What fascinates me is they did do six suits, and have shown them over the years. The ESB suit isn't the same as the ROTJ one, or the parade one, of the one above with the Prepro helmet. And there's more too. Every now and then, they'd pull one out when doing the costume tours like Magic of Myth, or they'd mix stuff up. Have a couple of plates from one Prepro suit, the jetpack from ROTJ, and gauntlets from a publicity suit. It's really kinda crazy, but the wear patterns make it possible to identify them. And yeah, I want a Black Series figure for every single one of those damnit.