I personally find psychological benefits to dressing nicely -- I feel much more industrious and "ready-to-work" when I wear a nice outfit to work compared to tshirt/jeans/sneakers, plus I get a nice "switch" effect when I get home and can take it all off. Similarly, I feel more prepared to exercise when I switch into my exercise clothes, even though those DO have "real" benefits thanks to their cut and material.
Beyond that, the signaling can be extensive. Not all signals are "quality" -- you can dress to show off your creativity or as a means of expression (I personally love to thrift/vintage shop and learn about fashion trends from other eras). You can dress to emphasize/de-emphasize various aspects of your face and body, presumably for sex appeal. And sure, you can dress to show that you've got money to spend.
But a lot of times, people dress to fit in. This can apparently get venomous in certain professions (finance, for one). In tech, there's often a dress code, as described in this comment[1], and "dressing like you don't understand why people care about nice clothing" is realistically pretty close to it.
What I was arguing against is the maximizing impulse on the _other_ end: the notion that it's so self-evidently universally valuable that the primary reason to not dress well would be Virtue signaling.
That comment you linked to is just flat bullshit. People who desperately try to justify strict old-fashioned dress codes somehow conflate "you can literally lose your job if you don't dress this way" with "I feel awkward being the only person dressed this way, even in the absence of anyone else's reaction". It's insane to me that so many people uncritically parrot this utter nonsense.
There is also big difference between formal rules you can be fired for not following and informal ones - informal are still limiting but people cross them once in a while and you often finds it is actually ok in the long term.
People like to generalize tech as if everything would be stereotypical frat like start up, but it is not the case.
Curious, were you wearing your higher quality clothing when you made this comment ?
For some, more expensive clothes increases their sense of superiority. I, for example, am less polite and less patient when I have to dress well. It isn't so much of a problem now that I am aware of it.
I don't think describing a common thought pattern has much to do with an increased sense of superiority. Have you never spoken about a behavior or activity that you think is bad? Were you exhibiting a superiority complex each time? Give me a break.
I don't feel the psychological effects of dressing well particularly strongly, but I acknowledge that others do and I don't think there's anything wrong with those feelings.
That's a very different position from being small minded enough to universalize one's own attitudes towards attire to "explain" the behavior of those who may not feel the same way as you. _That's_ what I was arguing against, the idea that virtue signalling must be the reason for putting less money and time into attire because people couldn't _possibly_ have different preferences.
The downside of higher quality clothing (money) is obvious: it's the upside that needs explaining. Fashion is the prototypical example of signaling, and quality as held separate from fashion has a couple minor advantages like being long-lasting and marginally more comfortable that many people feel aren't worth the price.
I dress moderately well, but that's largely against my preferences. I do it because I'm aware that people treat you differently based on how you look and how you dress, and I've decided that the cost and annoyance of putting together a good wardrobe is worth the benefits. To be clear, I've got a pretty low opinion of those who judge others based on their attire, but I'm realistic (and cynical) enough to get that that's the world I live in.
I've worked with a lot of incredibly smart engineers at places like Google, and the people I know pretty much ran the gamut of caring about the quality of their clothing. The only difference is that they tended to have their work performance judged on productivity instead of fashion so, relative to others, their calculus for how to dress included one less variable in favor of dressing up.