This issue always stirs up controversy, because many people have strong feelings one way or the other about it, and religion and military service usually gets involved.
When I'm piping I wear a hat (whether Glengarry or Balmoral) most of the time, because (as people have said) it's part of the overall look of the piper. When people are hiring a piper they're hiring more than the sound, they're hiring "show" or a visual element as well. To take off part of your costume is to lessen the "show".
The "show" aspect hit my good piper-friend and I most strongly when we attended a big convention a couple days in a row. The first day we wore ordinary piper's kit (Argyll jacket, ghillies, etc) and few people paid us much mind and we got few requests to play. The second day we went all-out with feather bonnets, doublets, full plaids, horsehair sporrans, dirks, spats, etc etc and we couldn't walk ten feet without a mob of people photographing us and begging us to play.
Proud Mountaineer from the Highlands of West Virginia; son of the Revolution and Civil War; first Europeans on the Guyandotte
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