These days most pax are far too busy on their iPhone / iPads to even notice any AirCrew whom might pass by them and / or be concerned that an AirCrew member is wearing a hat (or not) and / or slurping back a latté (or not).
Conversely, the vast majority of pax's preoccupation is for having a simple to use, reliable, 'value for money' flight experience, rather than anything to do with an airlines 'image' and / or 'safety' (the latter being something that they, the pax, take for granted).
In counterpoint, given the above, it's particularly unfortunate that many of todays airline's so called 'leaders' & 'managers' (e.g. typically those with a grandiose title of SVP this & that, or some such) are actually nought more than mediocre stock (wherein describing them as 'a bunch of out of their depth chancers' might be a more apt description?!), much exemplified by many of them being stuck in a time-warp from airline practices of yesteryear. Therein many of them are quite simply yesterdays men (and women), they typically being devoid of new ideas and / or under-qualified and / or under-experienced and, accordingly, in desperate attempts to appear 'effective' and / or 'to be doing something', they typically resort to being ever more dictatorial, often coupled with micro-management. The expression that "They have a firm grasp of the nonessentials" is never more true, and I say this based upon having neigh on 30 years in the airline business and during that time I've been privy to some great leaders & managers, but also an unbelievable number of chancers & wankers, and (imho) I can readily discern the difference between them!