I would happily give my stripes away or change them for a payrise, say 1000 USD a stripe ( I would settle for a dollar after a little talking ).
Wearing stripes does not make you more or less professional than the bloke that does not have any.
Thing is that in some part's of the world rampers and ops people expect pilots to wear uniforms and if you don't well, you get treated differently ( mostly developing countries ).
Anyways I much rather fly in my shorts, sandals and dirty T-shirt wearing my Billabong hat Unfortunately I can do it only now and then as my company enforces a strict uniform code.
JJ