Yeah, it’s not for everybody. Especially if you love to wear sandals. I just love that quote from KL. 
I recently spent a week in San Francisco’s financial district, where I thought full dress business attire would be seen to flourish luxuriantly. But no. I didn’t see any more suits than I would anywhere else in California, which is to say practically zero.
Perhaps that’s because lunch away from the office has just about gone the way of the dodo bird?
If you’d focus that observation to the male of the species, I would agree. Otherwise, not so much. 
I like suits as much as the next guy, but the outfit just doesn’t work 35-odd miles north of Baja. I can’t remember the last time I could wear even a light sweater comfortably, let alone a suit jacket and tie. If you do wear a suit you lose 90% of its esthetic value whenever you take off the jacket, because then you’re just wearing a shirt and tie. Huge difference.
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One new years’ eve night in the early aughts, when we still lived in Pasadena, Husband and I noticed a family that seemed subtly but definitely out of place.
This family was REALLY blonde, and every one of them was…I think the best description would be “husky” - heavyset but in a “there’s muscle under there” sort of way. But the thing that really stood out was that they were all in thick cable knit sweaters and heavy jackets - WAY overestimating how cold it was going to be.
Most everyone else in the restaurant was dressed for the SoCal winter - jeans and t-shirts with a hoodie over for warmth, or a nicer shirt and a light jacket. Even on New Year’s Eve, it probably won’t drop below 50 until the wee hours of the morning, after all.
We puzzled over them for some time, then I asked Husband who was playing in the Rose Bowl? Ah! Nebraska! That would explain it! They were dressed for a Nebraska new years’ eve, not a California one.
tl;dr - People from the upper midwest wear a lot more heavy layers in the winter, whether they need to or not.
Wow, this is an old thread, but I’ll play.
I live in Georgia, and I am a vestigial part of those Junior League Bridge Club Sunday School Teacher type ladies that raised me. All of their admonitions still ring in my head, and shoes are a big deal and say alot about a person. I never wear open-toe shoes in a professional setting, it is just my own personal rule. I also do not own a pair of red shoes and would never wear any with business attire because, “A proper lady does not wear red shoes, they are for children and streetwalkers.” 
I now work for a private University in Florida, and am lucky enough to work remotely and travel most of the time. However, when I am on campus in Florida, most everybody is in beachy looking clothes and flip flops or little flippy slippy sandals, even professors. I think it is sloppy and unprofessional, but hey, I still wear slips under dresses and in my neck of the woods big hair is always in style. You just don’t go out of the house looking any old kind of way, you take some care with yourself…at least a little lipstick, lol!
It is probably a prejudice of mine, but I have more regard for a person who puts some thought into how they put themselves together. And I don’t mean expensive clothes, just stylish and classic.
My people in Georgia have always looked down on Floridians for this way too casualness. When my father died in 1993 and relatives from Florida came to the church funeral along with a 13-year old cousin who showed up in a tiny crocheted crop top and micro-mini, my mother later said when it was brought to her attention, “Well…people in Florida don’t wear clothes.”
I am all in favor of anything anyone can do to murder all standards regarding dress in professional or social situations. Except when a uniform is needed for jobs that implicate safety or emergency situations, there should be no standards of dress, legal or social or anything.
To paraphrase a famous political operative, I want any notion of appropriate dress diminished to the extent that we can drown it in a bathtub. That metaphor adequately expresses the violence of my hatred for dress codes, whether official or social.
Regarding Texans and jeans vs shorts, I live in Austin, which is of course quite an outlier. I and everyone I know, except business folk and politicians, wear shorts unless it’s (one of those three days when it’s) very cold. However, I have a pretty active job (food service, lots of running around).
When I worked in an office, however, I dressed casually but in jeans or other long pants. The reason? In summer the AC is set at about 55F. I recommend short-sleeved shirts and a sweater year-round. Most people aren’t that extreme at home, but everyone’s low thermostat setting in summer is about 10 degrees lower than the high in winter. You’d think there’d be a comfort zone in the middle, but no.
Ha! This is hilarious. As I was reading your description of these people, I was thinking to myself “they sound like Nebraskans.”