I think there’s two schools of thought coming out of this discussion.
Firstly, there’s the thought that better costume means better immersion, and hence is great all around. Thus, minimum standards in games is completely acceptable. Many of you have also gone into more detail about how one applies a minimum standard, and does so professionally. I think Idiot’s the chief among this school of thought.
Secondly, there’s the thought that high standards of costume turns people away. Certainly, we’ve touched on this already, and we have many things already in place for how to circumvent/combat/defeat this mentality, but the mentality exists nonetheless. I can guarantee you that there are people who do not even think of attending games because they feel intimidated by the wonderful levels of costume.
I’d like to expand on that one a bit more, and I think I know where Jordan is coming from. I personally have felt intimidated by great costumes of other players, often, other more experienced players. I look back at game one of Teonn and sometimes think “Wow, was that what I was wearing?” That’s my personal standards getting better, which is no bad thing. However, if I was not encouraged by other long term players, helped by them, given their time, I might not have been at Teonn at all - (unlikely, because this is me, and I have less self-consciousness than many others, but that is not the point). So here’s to those people who got me into some kit for game one - and because nobody judged me I felt included.
This leads on to where I think Jordan’s going - if minimum standards mean that the atmosphere of the game and its players shifts into a judgmental frame of mind, where the permeating attitude is to sneer and judge people’s costume and kit - then we have a problem. Even if this is a quiet and subtle form of judgment, it still would give the game a nasty feel - hence, 'Ruining the game" as Jordan states.
In summary, I think we as a community, players and GMs, have to be careful, because there already exists an intimidation factor in many of our larps, long term or one off, and we need to be aware of it, regardless of our thoughts on minimum costume standards.