Crimes of fashion

Even though I'm not a lawyer, even though my "work" clothes are dissertation sweats, for some reason, I keep coming across the question (see the comments) of what female lawyers can and can't wear. This seems to be a subject of endless fascination for many in that profession. The limits seem both strict and contradictory: women must wear flat shoes, or must not. Suit jackets are de rigueur, or too masculine if paired with pants. And the great question of 'what to wear in front of a judge,' my goodness. One would think the 'judge' was there for the express purpose of judging not whichever case, but whether a dark red nail polish is or is not an acceptable choice for a lawyer to wear in court. (For the record, I could not care less what colors are permitted in this situation, so please, let's not make this a thread that.)

What does interest me, however, is what the appeal is of this genre. Is it simply that it's hard to sort out what the rules are, which produces anxiety, and this is not unlike forums springing up to address nervous  grad school applicants? Is this a Quinn-and-the-Fashion-Club thing, as in, are people getting sadistic joy out of pointing out the fashion crimes of their peers, all the more so when the "crimes" are things like wearing black instead of navy, or navy instead of black? Is it genuine fun for fashion-oriented women to figure out how to look chic while still obeying what some post about this somewhere referred to as the Talmudic rules of dress for female lawyers, the way some girls with a uniform will do everything possible to dress it up/down? Is there some kind of perverse thing going on, such that women who've entered a high-powered, still-gendered-male profession enjoy following the evidently quite sexist rules when it comes to the superficial? On this, enlighten me. But again, on the specifics of "business casual" versus "business formal," I already know more than I care to.