Some wise words there mate! I knew a guy that worked at a local recording studio near where I live and said the amount of people that come in to record that are drunk or hi or simply haven’t learnt their parts is simply astounding - it’s frustrating for the engineer who’s obviously trying to do his best to get a good sound out of their clients but on the other hand these people where paying by the hour to be there and kinda ripping themselves off.
It was interesting to hear what you had to say about the whole image thing , I mean every artist needs some kind of image but if it’s anywhe near the top of your priority list then yeah ...like you said.... maybe time to re-evaluate.