I'd argue the white gloves also make the character look a bit more interesting, in addition to what was said above (gloves for the sake of distinguishing the hands from the rest of the character).
I've gotten so used to the gloves that I don't really notice them anymore. I always think of the gloves as conforming exactly to the hand, so that if you removed the gloves, the hands would be the same size and shape as the gloves (therefore it'd be easy to imagine what the hand would look like without the glove: just give the glove a different color). I also imagined the gloves would be comfortable and allow full hand/finger movement, since they're wearing gloves all the time, and it seems the hands move as if the gloves weren't there.
I just know when I wear gloves, I expect some restriction of movement. And if they were really gloves, maybe we'd see some subtle creases during finger movement, adding to my theory that they conform perfectly to the hand.
Maybe the gloves allow the developers to approximate a hand and get away with it, whereas quite a bit of detail would be expected for a finger. Well, that argument doesn't hold water when you consider the "block hands" in Goldeneye and Perfect Dark.