I would love to see a way to check what the Durability of gear is on slaves without docking them.
Add a new button, under Status Report, called Gear Report. Let it show a list, same as if you shipscanned, with the % next to items.

You can view their inventories by opening Possessions and double clicking them. I do agree that it should be more straight forward, though.

I meant while in a fight or in action, aka. undocked.

You can do it while they are undocked. But again, I agree that the process should be streamlined for undocked ships.