Now that's not true at all. They mean a great deal. Every time I see a student pilot in a uniform with epaulets I think - "Now there goes a complete dork who doesn't know enough to know that: 1) he's getting ripped off by a flight school, and paying for a silly uniform to boot, and 2) that they look like a dork flying a trainer wearing a uniform."

If I didn't get paid to wear the monkey suit at work and it wasn't required by said employer I'd show up in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts.