The fundamental difference I see between NBA players and us regular folk, is that those guys have no privacy. If AI's friend's, cousins, uncles, sisters, brother get arrested for dope, it makes national headlines insenuating that AI is involved somehow, only to get to the last paragraph where in fine print it says "it is not known if AI was present at the time of the occurance." When was the last time you can recall the local Mickey D's worker getting his name dirtied like that? With the exception of the military, do either one of those professions you named dictate what employees in said professions can wear to and from their job? And in regards to the military, their dress code wasn't just dumped upon them one day, it's been like that forever. But anyways, when your personal life is put out for the world to see, and when the commentary and media coverage of the game is as personality based as it is in the NBA(unlike other sports), people are more informed(in most cases, TOO informed) about the players and have more information upon which to come to a conclusion about the kind of people these guys are, effecting the percieved image of these guys and the league. When you walk into a Police station and see everybody in uniform, that does present a very professional appearance, i'm not arguing that a bit. But that appearance is all you have to work with as far as the image they project because their personal business, good and bad, is not put out in front of the world for all to see and pick apart so their appearance plays a significantly more important role in their image than that of NBA players.

That being said, I can't see how the image of the league can or will be changed thanks to this dress code, because unless the coverage focuses more on the game itself instead of individuals, image will always be an issue because we all know that guys like MJ, Magic and Grant Hill are a rare breed.