Because the 'leaders' aren't actually leaders. Just people who know how to play soldier a little better than the rest.
That has nothing to do with Mainstream reenactors not being able to say no to retarded stuff like pike guards. Reenactment is just like minded people coming together, democratically deciding on what to do.
And likeminded people can go both ways. There are people that generally agree to all those weird ideas because they either do not know better or do not care, and they ususally get together and group up. And then there are people that do not want that kind of stuff, and they also group up.
So you will end up with different groups, all with slightly(Or not major..)differences in their opinion on how to reenact.
And that is a good thing. If everyone was forced into a unit with a leader they do not know or like and would be forced to wear and do what he says, they would basically be in the real army. A few people would like the leader, but the majority would probably dislike him, and eventually he would end up "accidentially" getting shot in the back.
This is exactly what happened back in the day, and you probably do not want to repeat that. I understand that you need this in the real army and it makes perfect sense to do so, but for a hobby it makes no sense. You group up together with like-minded people and work together with them because you are doing this for fun. And being together with people that you do not like is not fun.
But this also explains why Mainstream groups generally can not say "no" to those ideas. There is no one in the group that could potentially be against it. Everyone thinks the same and has the same opinion about how to do stuff.
Anybody here happen to have a good English translation of the Bardin uniform regulations? I feel my competence in French should be enough to get through it eventually but it'd be nice to have a version that doesn't require me to focus so much in order to read it and not accidentally miss small details.
I have never heard about that, I would be interested in it myself. Since I am assuming that you are reading it for your 85e impression, remember that what is written in the regulations and what the regiment/soldier actually had is sometimes very different. So take the regulations as base for everything, but then apply your regiment/timeframe/soldier specific modifications to it.
Because the 'leaders' aren't actually leaders. Just people who know how to play soldier a little better than the rest.
Seems an accurate description of our group.
Or reenactment in general? I mean it is a big pretend game anyway.