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.
Oh dear! I'm rather a squirrel, and tend to have loads of rubbish in a big flight bag, and don't bother to take just what I need. I'd better go back to my previous habit - bringing charts and headset in a Tesco carrier bag.