Some thoughts on all this:

1) There are lot more employee protections in the UK than in the US, so I'll try to bear that in mind re: the cultural differences for this one.

2) I've always found dress codes preposterous. All that matters is that the work gets done and done well, so this polished appearance thing is nonsense as far as I'm concerned. Of course, if people want to dress smartly as a means of self-expression, good for them. But when I used to work in television (before becoming a full-time writer) I ran a department for some years, and couldn't have cared less if members of staff came into work wearing a Chewbacca onesie for all I cared (as indeed one person did on one occasion, for a laugh), as long as they did their jobs well (and they did).

Of course, there is one logical exception to this: Customer facing roles in which they need to be identified as members of staff (eg, in a supermarket) so a certain amount of uniform becomes necessary. But even then, I'd keep it to a bare minimum.

3) Re: Working from home. It all depends on the nature of the job. Obviously, you can't repair roads working from home. And I do agree that face-to-face collaboration can be important. At the same time, I don't believe in rules for the sake of them, so whenever my staff said they'd rather work at home on any given day, they were permitted (I allowed this for years before Covid). Apart from anything else, they tended to produce their best work at home (for example, if they were writing something and needed the quiet to focus and have optimum creativity).

4) Where I do agree with you on the whole manhood question is it is cowardly to hide behind a laptop and behave like an arsehole. Being face to face means you're more likely to think twice before doing something punchable.