Blue equipment from commendations vendors starts at 12 commendations and go up to 14. Equivalent in modifications to orange armor is armoring 7, mod 2, enhancement 2, for a total of 11 commendations.
Ergo, it's easier to wear full orange gear with all blue mods than full blue gear. Assuming they're the same level, they'll have pretty much the same stats.
This isn't taking into consideration crafting, where you have a rather huge advantage with orange gear. If you can make mods, you can use the same mods in every piece of orange gear, meaning you only have to reengineer up to purple once, instead of 5 times.