I was thinking along similar lines, but more dress code.
I have observed that the respect and treatment that a pilot receives, is more or less inversely proportional to the size, content (and to an extent shininess) of his flight bag.
Compare the pilot who just walks in with a battered kneeboard and a well-used headset, to the pilot who walks in with the biggest leather flightcase that Jeppesen makes, filled with GPSs, Icomms, PLBs, PCAS, charts for the whole of Europe and beyond, plus flight guides, three fuel testers, eight frequency reference cards, five rulers, two flight computers, three high-viz vests and a life jacket and then tells you he came all the way from an airfield 20 miles away.