This is an excellent discussion, and i had to think carefully before replying to it Im a big big fan of dystopia rpg.
Ok, first thing i want to state, Shadowrun's essence loss is a rules balance specifically targeting the cyber-mage powergamer, and a role play hook that you can chose to dabble with if you so chose, but dosnt really affect the players until they want to go cyber zombie (which as i recall, had a machine as part of the ritual that had to keep reminding you that you wern't dead).
Cyberpunk's humanity loss however, is a mechanic that sits in the background of the whole game and should impact on virtually everything.
Secondly, the cyberware in CP had differing (and slightly random) costs attached to them depending on how far they took you from an imaginary line represented by your humanity score. Cosmetic and medical surgery had virtually no psychological impact unless you were radically altering yourself, for example the exotic packages, where you could look like a kitty girl, dragon etc.
The real damage came from the stuff that made you (at least to your mind) vastly superior to those around you. Chipped reflex's are a prime example of this. You can jack your reflex's so high, that everyone around you seems slow and clumsy, You live in a world in slow motion where your line between thought and action is very fine indeed. Put a switch on them however and you can reduce their impact on your life because you can interact with people at at the same speed they interact with you.
In CP you can get eyes that see through walls, arms and legs that can punch through cars, gills, flame throwers, guns in your head that let you kill with a thought, armour that makes you invulnerable and inbuilt chem labs to tweak your mind up down and sideways, remove fear, pain and any other human frailty. There are box's you can put in your head that record your life to be played back for entertainment, or put through an editing sweet to replace the actual events themselves, they can be used to create and replace friends, family, lovers and children in a self created virtual world you cant tell from the real one unless you can see the switch.
The mind in CP is no longer a plaything of the body, its the play thing of the credit card. The 6 million neuyen man is in faster, stronger and better than the people around him. When you can flip a coin and kill everyone in the bar before you find out weather its heads or tails, your going to lose the ability to relate to the meat-bags around you.
All that being said, I think that a humanity-loss mechanic is part and parcel of a true cyber punk game, but not a necessaraly part of a dystopia game, a world of instant fix and instant gratification is a scary one. A dark future with no limitations at all is terifying.
An example just ocured to me, you remember that slightly over officious guard that hasseled the party for a few silver peices? diddnt the party come back four levels later, pounch him in the face and stroll on without a second thought? and thats with power they had to work for, not just stroll into a shop and pick super powers off the shelf.
I think the question is weather you want to take some of the work out by putting in a humanity loss mechanic, or subtly alter your description of events as they slowly erode their own humanity. I prefere the second one but the first option takes a hell of a lot of presure off.
edited for typo's.
